f.36
recto:

Bengal florican, late 17th century.

Painting if a female Bengal florican (or Bustard) standing in a meadow on the edge of a lake with a large flowering plant on either side and cloudy sky above. The bird and composition of the painting is very similar to that on f.8 of the British Library's Dara-Shukoh Album.


verso:

Mughal ladies in a garden, late 18th century.

Set in a walled garden beside a stream during the monsoon season, a princess reclines (bed) as she smokes from an enamelled hookah. She is fanned by an attendant with a morchhal (peacock feathered flywhisk) as she listens to a singer and tanpura player. An open doorway in the wall leads into a further wooded garden.

Intimate scenes of Mughal women in domestic and outdoor settings were common in the 17th and early 18th centuries.


For further information on this album see RCIN 1005069.