in opaque colours and gold on paper laid down on card, the seated figure within an oval cartouche central placed within an elaborate ground of polychrome illumination, two lines of calligraphy in white within pendant cartouches, ruled margins in blue and red enclosing a border of foliate scrolls in gold on a dark blue ground, a cartouche with a line of calligraphy in black on a gold ground set above on the album page, the reverse with an illuminated page set with five lines of nasta'liq, central image 10.1 x 6.7cm., folio 48.2 x 32.5cm.

Inscriptions: the title above the page; tasvir-i husn 'alam-i sharab “Depiction of Beauty. The world of drinking”

Within the page the two lines of calligraphy contain the opening sura (al-Fatiha) of the Qur’an.

Verso with lines from a ghazal of Hafez

This a folio from an album of portraits each usually inscribed in Persian with the title tasvir-i husn or Depiction of Beauty and hence has become known as the Husn Album. The folios, as with this example, are typically on a gold flecked ground with the images contained within the dark blue border. The portraits are variously Mughal from the late sixteenth, seventeenth or eighteenth century and attributed to the court artists of Awadh.

ex Bonhams