Thursday, August 9, 2012

Asian Miniatures

Album of Indian/Mughal portraits and mythological scenes


sketch 8-armed Indian female figure with cobra, sword + umbrella on winged lion
(?)The Hindu Goddess, Durga



Asian Miniatures - portrait - sword



Asian Miniatures - portrait - Arabesque



Asian Miniatures - portrait - Arabesque (detail)



Asian Miniatures - portrait - swords



sub-continent watercolour sketch of mongol emperor
Aurangzeb, 6th Mughal Emperor (Abul Muzaffar Muhiu 'd-Din Muhammad)



gouache portrait, India 1600s



Asian Miniatures - portrait - flower



Asian Miniatures - portrait - jewel



Asian Miniatures - portrait



Asian Miniatures - portrait - (winged horse)


{all these images have been spliced together from screenshots and were
very lightly cleaned in the background of spots and library stamps}


A small, unnamed ~18th century album of pencil and watercolour sketches is hosted online among the prints and photographs in Gallica, the digitised collection at Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The subjects - Mughal emperors and Hindu gods - originate in the Indian subcontinent, and the BNF assesses the date range of the drawings at between the early 1600s and late 1700s (ie. they don't know). It seems likely that more than one artist was involved and a few of the works were never taken much further than the preliminary sketch stage. About the only thing known for certain is that this album was once owned by 19th century French polymath Egyptologist, Émile Prisse d'Avennes, whose works have been featured here previously: Classical Egypt & L'Art Arabe.

Also previously, and more on point: Mughal Royal Lineage & Memoirs of Babur || India

Mughal Empire article at Wikipedia.

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