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Lot Essay
The episode illustrated in this painting is the Mughal Emperor Babur being cut on the head by his cousin Tambal as their armies engaged each other at the crack of dawn. The incident took place in 908 / 1502-03 and is described in A.S. Beveridge’s translation of the original Turkish text. “I had on the cap of my helm; Tambal chopped so violently at my head that it lost all feeling under the blow. A large wound was made on my head, though not a thread of the cap was cut.” (Beveridge, 1969, p.167)
The Baburnama is an autobiographical chronicle and memoir of Babur, the young prince who conquered India in 1526 and founded the Mughal dynasty. Babur’s grandson, Akbar, ordered the text to be translated from its original Chagatai Turkish, the language of the Timurids, into Persian, the language of the Mughal court. The task was undertaken by ‘Abd al-Rahim, Akbar’s khan-i khanan and the finished translation was presented to Akbar in November 1589. Court artists immediately began working on an illustrated version of the manuscript. Our painting comes from this first illustrated copy of the Baburnama, now dispersed between public and private collections worldwide. (Stronge, 2002, pp.86-91). It is originally thought to have contained 193 illustrations. Our painting was number 42 in the manuscript.
Within the next ten years, six other illustrated versions were produced for Akbar. Ellen Smart wrote that ‘the spontaneity, simplicity, and forthright vigor of the paintings from this first manuscript are far more in keeping with the text than are the more complex, ornate paintings of the manuscripts that followed’ (Smart, 1978). Nineteen folios from our manuscript are in the Victoria and Albert Museum and as a result it is often referred to as the ‘South Kensington Baburnama’. Other folios however are in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Chester Beatty Library, to name a few. Other folios have sold at auction, most recently in these Rooms, 21 April 2016, lot 1.
The illustrations in three other Baburnama manuscripts which correspond to this painting are a folio from the British Library manuscript (Or.3714) which sold at Sotheby’s, London, 7 April, 1975, lot 98; a folio from the Moscow-Baltimore manuscript which sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 5 March 1971, lot 134; and folio 98r from the version in the National Museum in New Delhi. For another illustration from the ‘first’ Baburnama series in this sale, see lot 138.
We would like to thank Ellen Smart for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.
The Baburnama is an autobiographical chronicle and memoir of Babur, the young prince who conquered India in 1526 and founded the Mughal dynasty. Babur’s grandson, Akbar, ordered the text to be translated from its original Chagatai Turkish, the language of the Timurids, into Persian, the language of the Mughal court. The task was undertaken by ‘Abd al-Rahim, Akbar’s khan-i khanan and the finished translation was presented to Akbar in November 1589. Court artists immediately began working on an illustrated version of the manuscript. Our painting comes from this first illustrated copy of the Baburnama, now dispersed between public and private collections worldwide. (Stronge, 2002, pp.86-91). It is originally thought to have contained 193 illustrations. Our painting was number 42 in the manuscript.
Within the next ten years, six other illustrated versions were produced for Akbar. Ellen Smart wrote that ‘the spontaneity, simplicity, and forthright vigor of the paintings from this first manuscript are far more in keeping with the text than are the more complex, ornate paintings of the manuscripts that followed’ (Smart, 1978). Nineteen folios from our manuscript are in the Victoria and Albert Museum and as a result it is often referred to as the ‘South Kensington Baburnama’. Other folios however are in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Chester Beatty Library, to name a few. Other folios have sold at auction, most recently in these Rooms, 21 April 2016, lot 1.
The illustrations in three other Baburnama manuscripts which correspond to this painting are a folio from the British Library manuscript (Or.3714) which sold at Sotheby’s, London, 7 April, 1975, lot 98; a folio from the Moscow-Baltimore manuscript which sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 5 March 1971, lot 134; and folio 98r from the version in the National Museum in New Delhi. For another illustration from the ‘first’ Baburnama series in this sale, see lot 138.
We would like to thank Ellen Smart for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.