PORTRAIT OF PRINCE AZAM SHAH, THIRD SON OF AURANGZEB (D. 1707 AD)

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These two striking portraits come from a now dispersed album commissioned around 1700 by a Dutch traveller, perhaps Cornelius le Bruyn. The album was entitled ‘Mongolsche Keysers’ and contained nineteen large-scale portraits of Mughal rulers, princes and their ancestors. As with our two portraits, each is identified in an early hand on the reverse in Dutch and/or Latin and in Persian. Although the album does not carry a date, one painting from the group depicting Aurangzeb at the age of 80 (Indian Paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries, Waddington and Tooth Galleries, London, May-June 1977, no.5) means it must have been painted after 1698. The album was sold in Sotheby’s, 13/14 April, 1976, lot 267 before being broken up and dispersed by the London based art dealer Arthur Tooth and Sons.The present portraits were likely painted in Golconda in the Deccan. Although the precise but slightly stiff style of painting points to this attribution, the bigger clue is the unusually large scale for the period. These portraits relate to other known seventeenth-century Deccani paintings made after the Mughal conquest of the Deccan. One such example is a Deccani copy, probably from Golconda, of a Mughal painting of Jahangir offering jewels to Asaf Khan which was sold by Sotheby’s, London, 26 April 2017, lot 126.Portrait albums of Mughal and Deccani rulers proved popular amongst European – and particularly Dutch – travellers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The Witsen Album contains very similar albeit smaller portraits and is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-T-00-3186) whilst other comparable albums are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Estampes, Od 32 and Od 61, see Hurel 2010, nos.230 and 234, pp.167-173) and the British Museum (1974.0617,0.2). Cornelius de Bruyn, the possible patron of Mongolsche Keysers, published Voyages de Corneille le Bruyn par la Moscovie en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales, in Amsterdam in 1718. The work recounted le Bruyn’s travels and was illustrated by a number of engravings which are similar to the present portraits.Single portraits from the present album have sold in Sotheby’s, London, 12 October 1981, lot 34; 15 October 1997, lots 72 and 73; 26 April 2017, lot 127 and 128; Sotheby’s, New York, 21 March 2002, lot 218 and in these Rooms 24 April 1990, lots 85 and 86.Azam Shah, identified on the reverse of the painting as Azam Tara, was the third son of the Emperor Aurangzeb who briefly reigned from March until June following the death of his father in 1707. In 1681 Azam Shah was named heir apparent. After ascending the throne following Aurangzeb’s death, Azam Shah was soon defeated and killed by his older half-brother Shah Alam, the later Bahadur Shah I, at the Battle of Jajau.

PORTRAIT OF PRINCE AZAM SHAH, THIRD SON OF AURANGZEB (D. 1707 AD)

PROBABLY GOLCONDA, DECCAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1700

Details

PORTRAIT OF PRINCE AZAM SHAH, THIRD SON OF AURANGZEB (D. 1707 AD)
PROBABLY GOLCONDA, DECCAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1700
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the verso plain with identificatory inscriptions in Dutch and nasta'liq
16 5⁄8 x 10 ¾in. (42.3 x 27.2cm.)

Provenance

Anon sale, Sotheby's, London, 13/14 April 1976, lot 267 (part lot)

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

INSCRIPTIONS:
On the verso in nasta'liq, sultan 'azam tara
Below in Dutch Azemtarra derde soon van orangseeb

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