Publication Date
Soon 1215-19 AH / approximately 1815-19 AD
Publication Place
-
Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia
Subject
Wood and water coloring inlaid with body and gold colors on paper
Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Physical Dimensions
30.5 ×41.2 سم
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Library Asset ID
2014.4.2
Record ID
object;EPM;my;Mus21;40;ar
Library Location
Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia
Date
Soon 1215-19 AH / approximately 1815-19 AD
Notes
This is the special vehicle of the son of the Spiritual Guru of the Afaqs (Murshid Zada Afaqs) Mirza Babur Bahadur. Mirza Babur (born in 1796) was one of the sons of the penultimate Mughal Emperor Akbar II (ruled 1806-37) and had the honorable title who considered the emperor as a leader of spiritual Sufism. Mirza Babur appears in a group painting dating back to 1812 in the British Library that depicts Akbar II with three other boys (see J.P. Losty, M. Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London 2012, pp. 209-10, fig. 150). Zana, a bullock-cart driver, and Ahir Jadubani (a cattle herder of Yadava lineage, who are ancestors of Shri Krishna) are residents of Delhi. The Fraser Album, which appeared from the papers of the family of that name in Scotland in 1979, consists of more than ninety high-quality watercolours, and apart from its artistic and aesthetic merits, it gives an exceptional portrait of life in and around Delhi at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an area that was relatively unknown to the British at that date, with the Mughals only relinquishing their rule in 1803 and the emperor who was nominally in power, James Bayley Fraser (1783-1856). His brother William (1784-1835) came from Inverness (Scotland). William went to India at the age of 16 as a trainee political officer for the East India Company. James arrived a year later to take up a trading post in Calcutta, where he joined William in Delhi in 1815. The brothers commissioned local artists to paint servants, merchants and people from regular military units, some of whom were used by the British, including Gurkha soldiers and colorful troops. For organizations such as Skinner's Horse, more than one artist was used to create the paintings that made up the album: some are usually attributed to Ghulam Alikhan, but the rest were likely produced by other members of the family. The works date from between 1815 and 1820. The three lots from the current auction capture the richness of Delhi's ceremonial life and are also representative of the British admiration for transport and servants, which appears in more qualitative examples of community school paintings.
Sample Text
“Artist Varzer’s Album – A Bullock Cart by Mir Mirza Babur” in Discover Islamic Art Collections. Museum Without Borders, 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;my;Mus21;40;ar
