ink, colour and gold on paper, an illuminated panel mounted on an album page with calligraphic borders

Sotheby's London, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, 6 April 2011, lot 102.

In good overall condition, a few very small areas of minor flaking of gold illumination, very slight discolouration on the margins and some wormholes a otherwise colours and gold bright, as viewed.
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This page of gold illumination is exquisitely executed, and the use of gold on the red and black ground with no other colours produces a mesmerising effect. The central panel on red ground contains birds perched amidst leaves and flowers; the surrounding areas on black ground contain animals, qilins and birds amongst trees and rocks. The design is clearly inspired by Persian work of the 16th century and a good example of a prototype is a series of spectacular borders on a manuscript of Sa'di's Gulistan attributed to Sultan Muhammad (see Sotheby's London, 6 April 2011, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, lots 74, 75 and 76. A slightly later example of a related design is in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (see Schmitz 1997, pl.27).

Scribes, poets and illuminators emigrated to the Muslim courts of the Deccan during the second half of the sixteenth century, and it is possible that this work was executed in this context. In comparison to Persian prototypes, this page has an intensity and freedom that is more in line with Deccani style, and the illumination in manuscripts and miniatures produced at Deccani courts in the late sixteenth century provide local comparisons; see, for instance, the robes, hats and saddle blankets in portraits of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur and the borders and the backgrounds of miniatures and manuscripts from late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Golconda (see Welch 1985, no.193, p.290; Zebrowski 1983, pls.VI, IX, XVIII, figs. 49, 50, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 135 and 144). An interesting and striking comparison can be seen in the gold-painted scenes on a lacquered wooden box from Ahmadnagar circa 1565 (see Michell and Zebrowski 1999, p.148, fig.109).

In the present case the artist has employed a technique of painting in gold that makes the overall design appear almost like filigree work, and one wonders whether the design was originally made as a doublure for a binding.