Page from a dispersed manuscript of the Chandayana of Da'ud, Central India, probably...

Page from a dispersed manuscript of the Chandayana of Da'ud, Central India, probably Mandu Sultanate, circa 1540, opaque watercolour and gold on paper, miniature 17.5 x 12.5 cm.; folio: 24 x 18 cm.

The page depicts Lorik seated on a bolster with a male musician standing behind him, Chandaini conversing with him and a maidservant walking beneath. The text, titled 'Laur Chanda' or 'Chandayana', tells of the romance between Lorik and the lady Chandaini.

This fragmentary painting is from the famous manuscript of the Chandayana composed by Mawlana Da'ud in 1379 and dedicated to the minister of the ruler of the Delhi sultanate, Firuz Shah Tughluq. The script is written in Naskhi and the paintings are considered one of the most beautiful fusions of the early Islamic and indigenous Indian pictorial traditions.

The locations of the various Sultanate styles in the Indian sub-continent are in most cases uncertain. On grounds of style this manuscript has been attributed to Central India, relating as it does to the rather earlier manuscript of the 'Nimat Nama' in the India Office Library, London.

The bulk of the manuscript to which this painting belongs - seventy-three pages in all - is preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. Twenty-eight paintings are in public and private collections across the world. Separate leaves have been published in many works including Archer, 'Indian Miniatures', 1960, pl.12; Binney, 'Indian Miniature Painting, the Mughal and Deccani Schools', no. 6; P. Chandra, 'The Tuti-nama of the Cleveland Museum of Art and the origins of Mughal painting', pl.106-111.

Provenance

Sotheby's New York, 'Indian and Southeast Asian Art', June 4, 1994

Property from the Estate of Alice Heeramaneck, lot 133

Literature

ed Mason, D. 'Intimate Worlds - Indian Paintings from the Alvin O.Bellak Collection' Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, no 10, pp 50-51