A SEATED PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MALIK AMBAR (1548 - 1626) SMOKING A HUQQA
Possibly Aurangabad or Northern Deccan, Central India, 18th century

Opaque pigments, ink, pencil, white wash, and gold on paper, the recto of this loose album page featuring a seated portrait of a dark-skinned gentleman clad in an elegant white muslin jama outfit, resting against a large bolster and smoking a huqqa, the physiognomy reminiscent of the young military leader who served as the Prime Minister of the Deccani Ahmadnagar Sultanate, Malik Ambar, the portrait surmounted by a Persianate illuminated border with a fox amidst roses, pasted onto an album page with several concentric decorative borders illuminated with recurrent Persian vegetal and floral meanderings on red and off-white grounds, the verso with 14ll. of Persian black ink nasta’liq script divided into two columns, the poetry text reading section 21 from Jami's Haft Awrang, in particular, the passage when Yusuf discloses his identity as the Aziz of Egypt to Zuleykha in a dream (Yusuf o Zuleykha), set within the same concentric borders of the recto, the text panel 14.8cm x 6.8cm, the folio 25.5cm x 15.5cm.