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Lot Essay
The wide blue margins of this album page, with their gold scrolling arabesque decoration, recall in terms of style and size folios from the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’. The way in which this album page is split between two scenes is also characteristic of the way works were mounted into the famous album. The margins of this folio, however, are unsigned and the scrolls are more compacted, which makes it probable that this is from a closely related album which also travelled from India to Iran and was inspired by the St Petersburg Muraqqa’.
A folio from the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ depicting ladies visiting a yogini and a lady preparing for her lover which has two paintings mounted side by side in a similar fashion to this album page is published in Francesca von Habsburg et al., The St. Petersburg Muraqqa', Lugano, 1996, pl. 13, fl 61 recto, p. 52, and a folio from the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ that depicts a scene of women bathing under trees inspired by European prints which is closely related to our present album page was sold in these Rooms, 25 April 2013, lot 49.
A folio from the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ depicting ladies visiting a yogini and a lady preparing for her lover which has two paintings mounted side by side in a similar fashion to this album page is published in Francesca von Habsburg et al., The St. Petersburg Muraqqa', Lugano, 1996, pl. 13, fl 61 recto, p. 52, and a folio from the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ that depicts a scene of women bathing under trees inspired by European prints which is closely related to our present album page was sold in these Rooms, 25 April 2013, lot 49.