SULTANATE INDIA, FIRST HALF 16TH CENTURY

A number of miniatures survive from this remarkable pre-Mughal manuscript known as the Prince of Wales Candayana since the remaining text and a number of miniatures comprising seventy-three pages are in the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai. At least twenty-eight others are in various institutions and private collections. The catalogue entry to one of these gives further details of a number of others (Darielle Mason, Intimate Worlds, Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection, Philadelphia, 2001, no.10, pp.50-1). Various attributions have been given to the original manuscript, including Delhi/Agra, Oudh and Mandu. In her introduction to three further paintings in the Khalili Collection, Dr Leach is unable to place it precisely, leaving it open as "Sultanate" (Linda York Leach, Paintings from India, London, 1998, pp.11-15). Other pages are discussed in Joseph M Dye III, The Arts of India, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, London, 2001, cat.72, p.208-10.

The manuscript was composed in 1379 by Mawlana Da'ud of Dalmau for Jauna Shah who was the Vizier of the Sultan of Delhi, Firuz Shah Tughluq. The Candayana tells the love story between the hero Lorak and Canda, daughter of the ruler of Govar.