ATTRIBUTED TO MIR KALAN KHAN, LUCKNOW, INDIA, CIRCA 1760

Mir Kalan Khan (active 1730-1770⁄75) began his career in the Mughal Delhi working for Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-48). An incredibly versatile artist who excelled at adopting different styles and subject matter, Mir Kalan Khan’s career did not truly develop until he left Delhi around 1750 and joined the atelier of Shuja al-Dawla, Nawab of Awadh (r. 1754-75). This painting represents Mir Kalan Khan’s highly individual style: his vibrant use of colour, watercolour-influenced painterly approach to landscapes and portraits which have a noticeable sweetness and which are often shown in a three-quarter profile (Terence McInerney, Mir Kalan Khan, in Milo Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B.N. Goswamy (eds.), Masters of Indian Painting II, Zurich, 2011, pp.607-622).

Mir Kalan Khan’s style has varyingly been described as mannerist or eccentric (Linda York Leach, Paintings from India, London, 1998, p. 168). This is due to his referencing of an eclectic and diverse range of earlier Mughal, Deccani and European sources which he would have become familiar with from his time spent in the imperial atelier in Delhi. In an essay on Mir Kalan Khan and the present painting Kavita Singh challenges this view. She writes that rather than simply mimicking what went before, Mir Kalan Khan had an extreme talent at inhabiting a mode and mentality of previous artists and he would create novel compositions within the space (“Elephants in a Landscape: Dakhl poetry and the poetic imagination of Mir Kalan Khan”, in Prahlad Bubbar, Immaculate Conception: Desire and the Creative Impulse 300BC-1930, London, 2017, p.90).

At first glance the scene appears to show the act of taming a wild elephant, in the style of earlier Mughal painting. On closer inspection the two fighting elephants are both clearly from the royal stable, sporting gold bells and ridden by mahouts. Like the depiction of elephant hunts, the image of royal elephant fights are found in many Mughal paintings but such fights were an exclusively palace entertainment and would not have taken place in the wilderness as shown here. The painting is an deliberate juxtaposition (Kavita Singh, ibid).

Whilst the meaning might not be apparent today, this reworking of existing motifs would have been understood in the context of the period. In the 18th century the viewing of Mughal paintings was underwritten by a long tradition of connoisseurship where learned patrons had assembled works made by famous past masters into albums. Each work was in conversation with those around it and the juxtapositions of works mounted together would have been apparent to both the erudite viewer. For painters the challenge was to demonstrate an ability to bring something new to a new image whilst demonstrating an artist’s art historical knowledge (Molly Aitken, ‘Parataxis’, p. 89). This practice in painting was mirrored in literature of the time by contemporary Urdu and Persian poetry in India. A poet would imitate the metre and rhyme of an existing master but try to rework it as a reflection of their own virtuosity (Paul Losensky, Welcoming Fighani: Imitation and Poetic individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal, Costa Mesa, 1998, pp. 7-10). In the manner a Mughal poet might try to inhabit the poetry of Hafiz, Mir Kalan Khan carefully inhabits the role of an Akbar-period artist whilst combining the various elements into a composition that would offer both a witty and also deeply meaningful commentary on the relationship between past and present.

Stylistically the present painting is closely comparable to ‘A Party of women playing musical instruments’, attributed to Mir Kalan Khan circa 1765-75 from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (11B.16; McInerney, op.cit., fig.13, p.620). Both paintings have similarly rendered landscape with a distinctive watercolour-esque execution for which Mir Kalan Khan is recognised (John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi, Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India 1100-1900, New York, 2011, p.150). This painterly approach to landscapes, probably influenced by exposure to European watercolours whilst in Delhi is something present in Mir Kalan Khan’s work from early in his career and seen in ‘The death of Farhad on Mount Behistun’ signed by Mir Kalan Khan (British Library, Johnson Album 9, f.11) and ‘A Prince and Princess Picnic in the Country’ (The Khalili Collection, Ms.465) both from circa 1740.

Also characteristic of Mir Kalan Khan is the softly rendered and doll-like faces in the present painting. These again relate to the aforementioned Chester Beatty painting but are also very much present in ‘Village life in Kashmir’ which dates circa 1750-60 and is inscribed to the artist (British Library, Add.Orr.3). Similar faces are also found in a painting attributable to Mir Kalan Khan which was sold at Sotheby’s London, 6 October 2015, lot 43 along with lot 41 which is also attributable to the artist. A painting attributed to Mir Kalan Khan was sold in these Rooms, 4 October 2012, lot 171.