1 Introduction
Among the European collectors of Indian muraqqaÊ¿s (Persianate albums) during the second half of the eighteenth century, the Swiss engineer-architect and entrepreneur Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier de Bottens (1741â1795),1 who spent thirty years in India from 1758 to 1788, stands out as an unparalleled figure. His uniqueness is reflected in at least three aspects: Firstly, as someone who had begun his career as a cadet of the East India Company and finally became Lieutenant-Colonel in 1782, Polier identified with both Indian and British culture and politics.2 He worked not only for the British, but also as architect and military advisor for several Mughal employers, such as Emperor Shah Ê¿Alam II (r. 1760â1806). Secondly, he continued to support his familyâsplit between Lucknow and Europeâeven after his return to Switzerland in 1788.3 Thirdly, and most importantly, the majority of the albums he commissioned Indian artists to compile between c. 1773 and 1785 are astonishingly close imitations of traditional Mughal muraqqaÊ¿s, consisting of alternating double-pages with painting and calligraphy and surrounded by elaborately illuminated margins. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Polierâs surviving albums surpass those collected by his European contemporaries Richard Johnson (1753â1807), Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil (1726â1799), as well as Sir Elijah Impey (1732â1809) and his wife Lady Mary (1749â1818).4 Hence, it would be too simplistic to consider Polier as just one of several European residents in India who were amassing âcultural capitalâ to secure their positions,5 and to set up and maintain colonial ânetworks of sociability.â6 Nor can one detect any commercial interest in these albums, as, in all likelihood, Polier did not sell any of them during his lifetime.7 Béatrice Veyrassat considers Polierâs album collecting as a âcultural investmentâ meant to affirm his status among the Mughal nobility,8 to be distinguished from Polierâs lucrative private business in wholesale trade and luxury goods (such as Pashmina shawls, engraved rubies and emeralds) that he had been running since the time he settled in Faizabad (Awadh, todayâs Uttar Pradesh) in 1773.9
In this essay, I will argue that Polierâs album collection, assembled over a period of more than ten years, transcends such strategic interests. My contention is that Polierâs muraqqaÊ¿s, more than anything else, reflect his double identity oscillating between various professional and social rolesâas officer and surveyor for the East India Company, Franco-Swiss entrepreneur, architect and member of the Mughal elite, and self-styled Orientalist.10 Having spent a greater part of his life in India rather than in Europe, Polier also had an Indian identity that manifested itself first in his Indo-Persian life-styleâhe served as a vassal and military engineer of the emperor and architect of the nawabs of Awadhâand later on in his transformation into an Orientalist scholar and sympathiser of Hindu mythology during his last years in Lucknow.11
When Polier returned to his hometown of Lausanne in September 1788, he brought with him more than thirty volumes with Indian paintings, for which there are two textual sources: According to a letter dated 20 March 1789, penned by the Swiss painter Michel-Vincent Brandoin (1733â1790) and addressed to the English novelist William Beckford (1760â1844) who would later purchase many albums from Polierâs bequest,12 Polier kept thirty-five Indian books in his house at Lausanne. These contained Mughal portraits, calligraphy, and pictures of natural history, customs, women, and mythology.13 The second source is an undated, handwritten document in French, preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and titled âNoticeâ (see the appendix to this article), offering for sale thirty-eight volumes of âIndian paintingsâ (â38 volumes de peintures indiennesâ). These volumes consisted of twenty-five numbered albums with various subject-matter and thirteen larger volumes with more than a hundred depictions of natural historyâthe note gives a price estimate for each, with the total adding up to 37,480 Ecus (a French currency unit).14 The short descriptions of the numbered albums match with the contents of Polierâs surviving albums, of which four still bear their volume numbers (I. 4596 [Volume Three] and I. 4599 [Volume Seven] in Berlin, 1920,0917,0.133â153 [Volume Twelve] in London, and Indian Drawings 12 [Volume Fourteen] in Manchester; see Tables 7.1 and 7.2). To the best of my knowledge, none of Polierâs volumes on natural history mentioned in these two sources have been identified yet. It is unclear where and in what condition they might have survived,15 since the âNoticeâ only roughly summarises their subject-matter as âflowers, plants, birds and some reptilesâ.16 The anonymous author requests that the collection of thirty-eight volumes would only be sold in its totality (âcette collection sera vendue en totalité ou point du toutâ, see app., âNoticeâ, p. 6). It is not clear whether the then owner (âpropriétaireâ) was Polier himself, his family, or one of his heirs. When Roselyne Hurel first quoted a short excerpt from this document, she assumed that Polier himself proposed the sale in 1788â1789, to the Cabinet royal in Paris, because the text ends with the statement that the two volumes on mythology should âstill remain in the hands of the owner until the production of his [possibly: her] work on the Indian mythology (âson ouvrage sur la Mythologieâ) would be completedâ.17 However, as the document is clearly not written in Antoine Polierâs hand, it is rather unlikely that he himself took this initiative. Furthermore, the information gathered by Béatrice Veyrassat from Polierâs estate inventory (1795) indicates that the thirty-eight volumes with Indian paintings (twenty-five albums and thirteen books with pictures of natural history) appear to have remained in Polierâs possession, even after his move to France in 1791 with his new wife Anne Rose Louise Berthoud van Berchem (1767â1804), until he was murdered on 9 February 1795 at his house near Avignon.18 Since we know that the Mythologie des Indous was only published posthumously by Antoine Polierâs cousin Marie-Elisabeth de Polier (1840â1817) in 1809,19 I tend to identify her as the owner mentioned in the sale offer and thus date the document between 1795âthe year of Polierâs violent deathâand 1809. Given the fact that neither the Bibliothèque nationale de France nor the Louvre currently hold any of Polierâs albums, the transaction of the sale apparently never took place.
Being an eager collector of Indian painting and calligraphy, Antoine Polier demonstrated less interest in unillustrated Indian manuscripts, of which he left behind more than two-hundred in India.20 However, a manuscript of the four Vedas in eleven volumes deserves being mentioned because in May 1789âsoon after his return to EuropeâPolier personally bestowed it to the British Museum as a result of his friendship with the judge and linguist Sir William Jones (1746â1794).21 This generous donation had been preceded by Jonesâs praise of âthe noble zeal of Colonel Polier in collecting Indian curiositiesâ in a discourse held at the Asiatick Society in Calcutta.22
Twenty-one albumsâincluding sixteen muraqqaÊ¿s produced in Mughal styleâfrom Polierâs treasured collection have survived in various collections; eleven of them are in the Berlin museums of Asian and Islamic Art (tables 7.1 and 7.2). Around 1800, most European collectors kept their albums as souvenirs until their death,23 probably also because a proper art market for Indian miniatures in Europe had not yet been established.24 This brings us to the question of how Polier and other Europeans acquired Indian muraqqaÊ¿s.
2 Polierâs and Gentilâs Patronage of MuraqqaÊ¿s in Faizabad (1773â1775)
In the early stages of colonising East India from the 1750s to the early 1760s, British soldiers and officials started to take Indian albums as booty (or acquired them by other means) from previousâoften unidentifiableâIndian owners.25 From the late 1760s until the 1790s, however, Europeansâmainly those residing in Awadhâstarted building their collections more consciously. This can be deduced, for example, from their predilection for certain subject-matter, such as portraits of âcruelâ Muslim conquerors of the likes of Timur (1336â1405) and Nadir Shah (1688â1747) and pictures of âindolentâ Indians whoâin colonial thinkingâwere prone to be governed by despots.26 One of these collectors was Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil who shared (or perhaps even initiated) Polierâs interest in muraqqaÊ¿s.
Gentil, born into a French aristocratic family in 1726, arrived in Pondicherry (south India) in 1752 to serve in the French infantry of the Compagnie française des Indes orientales. Following the French defeat against the British in Pondicherry in January 1761, he first entered the service of the nawab (governor) of Bengal Mir Qasim (r. 1760â1763) and in 1763 moved to Faizabad (Awadh), where he worked for twelve years until 1775, as military advisor and as patron of French-style architecture at the court of Nawab ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla (r. 1754â1775).27 Although he served at the court and received Mughal honorific titles (visible on his seal, dated 1182 [1768/69]),28 Gentil never really went native, but remained loyal to French interests.29 Not surprisingly therefore, in 1778âshortly after his return to Franceâhe deposited his album collection in the royal Cabinet des Estampes in Paris and eventually, in 1785, donated his entire collection of books and manuscripts to the French King.30
By contrast, Polierâwhom the governor-general of East India, Warren Hastings (1732â1818), had sent as a surveyor and architect to the nawabi court in 1773âsoon started building his own fortune in the guise of a Mughal noble.31 Scholars have so far assumed that Polier followed Gentilâs example, by establishing his own album workshop in Faizabad,32 headed by the Indian artist Mihr Chand (active c. 1759â1787)33 around 1773. Gentilâs inventory contains ten still extant, but undated albums.34 However, only three contemporary sources provide information on Gentilâs patronage in Faizabad: The first are two brief comments in his memoirs (posthumously published by his son in 1822), saying that Gentil kept three Indian draftsmen (âdessinateursâ) in his employ for ten years35 and that the nawab once lent him portraits by the English painter Tilly Kettle (1735â1786; active at the court of Awadh in 1772â1773) to have them copied in miniature (more on this below).36 The second source is the heavily illustrated Receuil de toutes sortes de Dessins sur les Usages et coutumes des Peuples de lâindoustan ou Empire Mogol, completed for Gentil in Faizabad in 1774 (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.25.1981; see the article by Susan Stronge in this volume), which mentions on its title page the artists Nevasilal and Mohansingh âin the service of the Nawab Wazir ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawlaâ.37 The third source is a letter by Polier to an unnamed painter in Faizabad, written on 11 Shawwal 1187 (26 December 1773), in which he complains that the painterâs portrait of the nawab (ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla) âhas been held back by Monsieur Gentilâ.38
Further evidence for Polierâs emulation of Gentilâs patronage has been presented by Malini Roy, showing that Mihr Chand copied at least three paintings from Gentilâs muraqqaÊ¿ no. 6 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Réserve Od 43) and yet another from a group of initially loose paintings (inventory, no. 14: âDessins indiens non rassemblésâ).39 Mihr Chand signed these four copies and included them in Polierâs albums I.â¯4594, I. 4595, and I. 4596 between 1776 and c. 1781 (now all in the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, see Tables 7.1 and 7.2).40 Roy has suggested that these four and another two unsigned paintings (I. 4599, fol. 7r and I. 4596, fol. 6r; closely resembling folios 8r and 30r of Gentilâs album Od 43) were probably made by Mihr Chand prior to his employment in Polierâs workshop.41 Another two copies produced from Gentilâs albums Od 44 and 60 can be added to this group: One shows Mulla Dupiyaza on horseback,42 while the other depicts a prince riding a horse and receiving water from village girls at a well (fig. 7.1),43 of which a very close variant is included in Polier album I. 4594 (fig. 7.2). Polierâs version is a little larger (25.7â¯Ãâ¯17.6â¯cm), whereas Gentilâs prototype, which Hurel has attributed to the Mughal painter Mir Kalan Khan (c. 1710/15â1770/75), measures only 22.5â¯Ãâ¯17.0â¯cm.44 The difference in height might be due to damage to the part featuring the sky in Gentilâs painting, which was perhaps cropped only after it had been copied by Mihr Chand (or by another artist working in a similar crystalline style). Several details have not been repeated in Polierâs copy, such as the second square vent hole in the base of the well and the knotholes in the tree on the right. The copyist also amended the tiny background figures; for example, instead of only two frontally viewed elephants as part of a military corps, he set numerous elephants in a row, forming a more compact troop. On Polierâs page,45 the elaborate marginal illumination outshines the plain gold-sprinkled frame of Gentilâs version and elevates the copy to the status of a masterpiece.
Figure 7.1
A prince on horseback receiving water from village girls at a well, Mughal, attributed to Mir Kalan Khan, c. 1735â1738, Gentil album
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Réserve Od 44, fol. 48r
Figure 7.2
A prince on horseback receiving water from village girls at a well, style of Mihr Chand, late eighteenth century, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4594, fol. 31r
In sum, the evidence indicates that Gentilâs workshop actually preceded Polierâs atelier. However, some doubts remain, since the earliest dated work produced for Gentil is an atlas of 1770 titled Empire Mogol divisé en 21 soubahs ou gouvernements tiré de différens écrivains du païs à Faisabad MDCCLXX (today preserved in the British Library).46 Another point of interest is that Gentil owned a painting apparently modelled on two miniatures in Polierâs possession, showing Timur receiving the Ottoman sultan Bayezid (r. 1389â1402) after the Battle of Ankara, of which one is signed by Shivadas (active around 1700).47 In a separate handwritten note referring to his copy, Gentil expressed his admiration for this âpiece of paintingâ being âprecious, rare and curious;â it âwould merit being engravedâ.48 Hence, the exchange between the two patrons was not one-sided. Polier and Gentil seem to have shared similar interests, and both obviously maintained contacts to suppliers of original Mughal paintings.
From his Persian letters written between June 1773 and July/August 1776,49 we know that Polier already in 1773 strove to hire binders and painters and that Mihr Chand compiled the first muraqqaÊ¿ for Polier around April 1775. On 16 RabiÊ¿â¯II 1187 (7 July 1773), for example, a few weeks after his arrival in Faizabad, Polier sent a letter to the bookbinder Mir Muhammad Azim, inviting him to come.50 On 1 ShaÊ¿ban 1187 (18 October 1773), he praised the painter Dulichand for his âfine qualitiesâ.51 The next year, on 2 RabiÊ¿ 1188 (13 May 1774), Polier commanded the âpainter of the sarkÄr [a district of the Mughal provincial government]â to come so that he could assign him âsome other workâ after having prepared âfive or six portraits of the Nawabâ.52 Polierâs first letter directly addressed to Mihr Chand is dated 14 RabiÊ¿ I 1188 (25 May 1774), telling him to keep the order of several portraits ready.53 Several letters of 1775 contain specific instructions as to how he should complete, rework, bind, and decorate paintings with the assistance of other painters and a decorator (naqqÄsh).54 Two letters (dated 16 and 17 April 1775) are the first to mention in detail the processes of assembling packages of sixty-eight and ninety-six paintings by binding them in albums of various sizes.55 Finally, in a letter dated 15 March 1776, Polier informs Mihr Chand that he had left Faizabad, reassuring him that he should continue to prepare paintings.56
In fact, Polier and Gentil were both forced to leave Faizabad in 1775. Gentil, being a French citizen, was expelled from the then British-dominated Mughal province by ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawlaâs successor Asaf al-Dawla (r. 1775â1797), whereas Polier had to quit the East India Company in November 1775 due to his support for a military campaign led by Najaf Khan (1723â1782), the commander-in-chief of the Mughal army. Polierâs resignation from the British Company forced Asaf al-Dawla to dismiss him, too. Gentil then re-joined the French troops in Chandernagore (West Bengal) in February 1775.57 But Polier offered his services to Emperor Shah Ê¿Alam II (whom he had personally known since 1761),58 which is attested in a letter dated 27 February 1776.59 Since the first album dedicated to Polier in its shamsa (decorated rosette) and bearing the inscription Volume troisieme (Volume Three) in Polierâs hand (I. 4596, see also app. âNoticeâ, pp. 1â2) is dated 22 February 1776, it must predate his move to Delhi. I. 4596 is the most outstanding (and also the largest) album of Polierâs collection, because it contains a considerable number of imperial Mughal paintings from the seventeenth century. Only two of its paintings are signed by Mihr Chand (fig. 7.3):60 Figure 7.3 is presumably a copy after a life-size oil-painting by Tilly Kettle.61 It shows a group portrait of the nawab ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla with his son Asaf al-Dawla and nine other sons gathering under an archway. Gentilâs memories relate that he had borrowed four paintings by Kettle from the nawabi palace in 1774 so as to have them copied in miniature (âen petitâ) before leaving Faizabad.62 It could well be that the second painting by Kettle that Gentil mentions as representing ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla with seven children63 actually was the model for Polierâs and Gentilâs miniatures. Gentilâs larger version (measuring 46.7â¯Ãâ¯39.7â¯cm, today preserved in the Musée Guimet) has no framing margin. In a separate document in Gentilâs hand, it is said to have been made by Nevasilal in 1774.64 The painting actually shows the ten sons of ShujaÊ¿, seven indeed portrayed as children. Whereas Polierâs much smaller copy (fig. 7.3; 33.3â¯Ãâ¯23.2â¯cm) shows a European-style portico as background opening up to a clouded sky, Gentilâs version represents the group inside an Indian hall with lobed archways on each side. Were these two copies perhaps part of a connoisseurial competition before Polier and Gentil parted ways in 1775? Be that as it may, Polierâs workshop further evolved in the coming years, whereas Gentilâs patronage of Indian muraqqaÊ¿s seems to have completely ceased the moment he left Faizabad.
Figure 7.3
Group portrait of Shujaʿ al-Dawla with Asaf al-Dalwa and nine other sons, after an oil painting by Tilly Kettle, signed by Mihr Chand, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4596, fol. 18r
3.1 Polierâs Years in Delhi at the Court of Emperor Shah Ê¿Alam II (1776â1780)
In March 1776, Polier moved to Delhi where he took up his new position at the court.65 Thanks to his appointment as Mughal vassal (jÄgÄ«rdÄr) and commander of 7,000 men,66 he became wealthy and confident enough to maintain his own atelier at an unprecedented scale. This newly gained confidence transpires from a letter that Polier sent on 27 Muharram 1190 (18 March 1776) to his confidant Manik Ram, in which he vividly describes his reception by the emperor:
Figure 7.4
Inner back cover of an album formerly owned by Polier with a seal-like inscription written in gold, dated 1181 (1767/68)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4593, inner cover
The Emperor honoured me with a khilÊ¿at [robe of honour] of seven pieces and fixed the turban jewels and ornaments with his own hand. He thus elevated me to the sky. A pearl necklace was also put around my neck and I was presented with a sword, an elephant and a horse. Again, in the evening I received special food from the royal table (ulÅ«sh-khÄṣṣa).67
In MarchâApril 1776 Polier sent two letters to Mihr Chand asking him to move from Faizabad to Delhi. In the first, he requests him to come with âtwo other painters and one naqqÄsh [decorator] who should be a good person, skilful and keen to accompany youâ, adding: âIf the naqqÄsh is not willing, then let him go. We have a good naqqÄsh hereâ.68 In the second letter, Polier urges Mihr Chand that he should âkeep all the albums (muraqqaÊ¿s) and qitÊ¿as [calligraphic specimens] in one box carefully so that they are safe from the dust and do not get damaged in transitâ.69 On 11 May 1776, he reminds him again to come to Delhi.70 A letter to Manik Ram finally acknowledges Mihr Chandâs arrival on 3 June 1776.71
Two Polier albums associated with Shah Ê¿Alam II on the basis of the seal-like inscriptions in gold on their inner covers (fig. 7.4)âboth dated 1181 (1767/68)âcannot be attributed to a specific workshop. It is possible that they once figured as Volume One and Volume Two of Polierâs collection judging from their general description in the above-mentioned sale offer and the presumably early production date (app. âNoticeâ, p. 1 and table 7.1). One is housed in the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin (I. 4593), while the other is in the British Museum in London (1920,0917,0.76â111).72 Based on the inscribed formula (11.7â11.9â¯cm in diameter) âMajor Polier ArsalÄn Jang loyal servant of Shah Ê¿Alam (fidvÄ«-yi ShÄh Ê¿Älam) Warrior Emperorâ, scholars have tended to think of album I. 4593 as a gift from Shah Ê¿Alam to Polier around 1767, when Polier became commander of the garrison of Fort William at Calcutta.73 However, Polierâs earliest known real sealâalso dated 1181 (1767/68)âhas a different (rectangular) format, measures only 2â¯Ãâ¯2.3â¯cm, and does not mention Shah Ê¿Alam.74 Conversely, an undated seal that comes closest to the golden inscription in its circular format, size (diameter 6.4â¯cm), and content was only produced after Polier was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 15 April 1782.75 One could thus surmise that theârather insecurely writtenâseal-like inscriptions were added to both albums a few months after Polier was promoted to the rank of Major in May 1766, in order to acknowledge or merely pretend that they were personal gifts from the emperor. It is possible that Polier had seized these two albums already two years earlier as booty during the successful siege of the Mughal fortress Chunargarh (Uttar Pradesh) in November 1764,76 following the victory of the British at the Battle of Buxar (Bihar) on 22 October.
Both albums have similar characteristic margins and covers that set them apart from the albums produced for Polier between c. 1773 and 1785. Their margins mainly feature schematic flower tendrils on a beige or brown backgroundâperhaps made by using stencilsâbut some of them show more intricate Chinese-inspired flower scrolls and pagodas painted in gold (figs. 7.5 and 7.6). In I. 4593, most paintings have been subtitled by Polier in French. In Polierâs later albums, however, which were directly assembled upon his request, French subtitles appear only occasionally.77 On the whole, they could well be identified as Polierâs earliest albums One and Two, although today both contain fewer than sixty folios eachâthe original amount mentioned in the sale offer.78
3.2 Polierâs Surviving MuraqqaÊ¿s Completed in Faizabad or Delhi until 1780
Figure 7.5
A lady sitting on a terrace inscribed in Polierâs hand â36. Dame Mahometaneâ, Mughal, eighteenth century, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4593, fol. 27r
Figure 7.6
Portrait of Timur, inscribed in the lower margin TÄ«mÅ«r ShÄh, Mughal, eighteenth century, Polier album
British Museum, London, 1920,0917,0.91
In the following, I shall briefly describe the characteristics of six still extant muraqqaÊ¿s that were presumably prepared in Faizabad but for the most part completed in Delhi, and put them in a tentative chronological order (table 7.1). Polierâs ongoing employment of Mihr Chand between 1776 and November 1779 is attested by the secondâhitherto untranslatedâvolume of Polierâs Persian letters (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Supplément Persan 479 A).79
The first album from Polierâs own workshop presumably was the above-mentioned exceptionally large muraqqaÊ¿ I. 4596, titled Volume troisieme (Volume Three) in Polierâs hand. Although all eleven Polier albums preserved in the Museen für Islamische and Asiatische Kunst in Berlin are today disbound,80 their original openings can be reconstructed on the basis of their pagination numbers following the European reading orientation. I. 4596 has a dedicatory shamsa inscription that not only gives Polierâs rank as Major and his Persian titles IftikhÄr al-Mulk, ImtiyÄz al-Dawla, BahÄdur, and ArsalÄn Jang, but also refers to him as sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är navvÄb-i vÄlÄjanÄb (âthe excellent commander, the deputy of exalted dignityâ),81 as also in the dedication on I. 4598. By contrast, I. 4599, I. 4594, and a newly discovered Polier album in Manchesterâs John Rylands Library (Indian Drawings 13)82 give the shorter form sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är navvÄb (âthe excellent commander [and] deputyâ). In his article in the present volume, Will Kwiatkowski makes the interesting observation that the use of the title navvÄb (deputy) signifies Polierâs relationship to the emperor. Hence, it seems that albums I. 4596 (Volume Three) as well as I. 4598âboth referring to Polier as navvÄb-i vÄlÄjanÄbâwere completed when he was on his way to the emperorâs court, whereas the other three albums with dedications (I. 4599, I. 4594, and Indian Drawings 13)âgiving the shorter title navvÄbâwere only brought to completion after Mihr Chandâs workshop had finally settled in Delhi in June 1776 (see Table 7.1). While Volume Four containing âabout fifty ancient paintings of the same nature as the numbers 1 and 2â (app., âNoticeâ, p. 2) appears to be missing, Volume Five can easily be identified as I. 4601: It is said in the sale offer to contain fifty folios,83 and it is the only surviving muraqqaÊ¿ that contains naturalistic images of butterflies on the versos of most of the paintings and only thirteen calligraphic pieces. The butterflies are explicitly mentioned: âThe fifth volume in/4° contains 50 small and excellent paintings en miniature, each having either Chinese butterflies painted on the reverse or some beautiful examples of Persian writing, [â¦]â (app., âNoticeâ, p. 2).84 I. 4598 could well be Volume Six (forty folios with âmany portraits of women in differents costumesâ, ibid., p. 2). No particular information is given in the sale list on Volume Seven (I. 4599 inscribed Volume septieme and dated 11 September 1776) or Volume Eight; both are described as containing âbeautiful writing [â¦] various portraits, dresses and other curious objects from Indiaâ (ibid., pp. 2â3). Volume Eight might correspond to the fragmentary album Indian Drawings 13 (fourteen folios). Like I. 4596 (Volume Three), it still contains two paintings signed by Mihr Chand, one of which is modelled on a hitherto unidentified European painting of a military camp in front of a castle (fig. 7.7).85 Volume Nineâconsisting of forty foliosâis certainly I. 4594, as a strip of paper glued to the back cover of the red leather binding still bears the faint inscription âNo. 9.â, which appears to be in Polierâs hand. Volume Nine is particularly praised in the list (âsuperb miniatures of which several [are] of the greatest beauty and delicatenessâ, ibid., p. 3) and said to have once belonged to the Mughal emperors. One of this albumâs pictures which was singled out originally belonged to the âunfortunate Dara Shikohâ, showing two âfaquirs in conversation with a singing violin player beneathâ (ibid., p. 3) it can be identified as I. 4594, fol. 7v.
Table 7.1
Polierâs surviving albums until 1780, completed in Faizabad or Delhi.
|
Muraqqaʿ / present location |
Dates of dedications and contemporary calligraphic pieces / original volume numbers |
Number of folios |
Dedications / signed paintings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
I. 4593 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
1181 (1767/68) (seal-like inscription on inner cover); Volume One? (see app., âNotice,â p. 1) |
50 folios (rest of 60 folios?) (42.5â¯Ãâ¯28.5â¯cm) |
inner back cover: 1181 / IftikhÄr al-Mulk / BahÄdur / ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r / ArsalÄn Jang fidvÄ«-yi ShÄh Ê¿Älam BÄdshÄh GhÄzÄ« |
|
1920,0917,0.76-111 (formerly Add. 23,610) (muraqqaʿ) British Museum, London |
1181 (1767/68) (seal-like inscription on inner cover); Volume Two? (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 1) |
26 folios (rest of 60 folios?) (42.6â¯Ãâ¯29.0â¯cm) |
inner back cover: 1181 / IftikhÄr al-Mulk / BahÄdur / ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r / ArsalÄn Jang fidvÄ«-yi ShÄh Ê¿Älam BÄdshÄh GhÄzÄ« |
|
I. 4596 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
2 Muharram 1190 (22 February 1776) fol. 1r: Volume troisieme / Volume Three (see also app., âNoticeâ, p. 1) |
30 folios (50.0â¯Ãâ¯36.5â¯cm) |
fol. 30v (shamsa): Huwa AllÄh al-Ê¿azÄ«z / muraqqaÊ¿-i sÄ« varaq ba-khaá¹á¹-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q wa-ghayruhu az khushnavÄ«sÄn-i / rÅ«zigÄr bÄbat-i sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är navvÄb-i vÄlÄjanÄb IftikhÄr al-Mulk / ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu ba-tÄrÄ«kh-i / duyum-i [duvvum-i] muḥarram al-ḥarÄm sana 1190 HijrÄ« tartÄ«b paáºÄ«ruft; fols. 18r and 29r signed by Mihr Chand |
|
I. 4601 and K 3431 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin; Louvre, Paris |
fol. 1r: blank central field Volume Five (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 2) |
49â¯+â¯1 = 50 folios (28.4â¯Ãâ¯20.0â¯cm) |
|
|
I. 4598 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
fol. 1r: blank central field; Volume Six? (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 2) fol. 10v: 1188 (1774/75) signed by IÊ¿jÄz Raqam KhÄn; fol. 21v: 5 ShaÊ¿ban 1188 (11 October 1774) signed by MÄ«r Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ê¿Aá¹Ä KhÄn; fol. 26v: 1185 (1771/72) signed by ḤÄfiẠNÅ«rullÄh |
40 folios (40.5â¯Ãâ¯28.5â¯cm) |
fol. 40v (shamsa): Huwa AllÄh al-Ê¿azÄ«z / muraqqaÊ¿-i chihil varaq bÄ mufradÄt u qiá¹Ê¿Ät-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u / shikasta wa-ghayruhu ba khaá¹á¹-i khushnavÄ«sÄn-i rÅ«zigÄr bÄbat-i sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är / navvÄb-i vÄlÄjanÄb IftikhÄr al-Mulk ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur / ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu |
|
I. 4599 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
27 Rajab 1190 (11 September 1776) Volume septieme / Volume Seven (see also app., âNoticeâ, p. 2) fol. 13v: 21 Shawwal 1188 (25 December 1774) |
40 folios (40.5â¯Ãâ¯28.0â¯cm) |
fol. 40v: Huwa AllÄh al-Ê¿azÄ«z / Ä«n muraqqaÊ¿-i chihil varaq ba-khaá¹á¹-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u shikasta u thuluth wa-ghayruhu az khushnavÄ«sÄn-i / yiktÄ-yi rÅ«zigÄr bÄbat-i sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är navvÄb IftikhÄr al-Mulk ImtiyÄz al-Dawla / Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu dar balada-yi dÄr al-khalÄfa ShÄhjahÄnÄbÄd / ba-tÄrÄ«kh-i bÄ«st-u-haftum rajab al-murajjab sana 1190 HijrÄ« muá¹Äbiq-i sana-yi 18 julÅ«s-i / mubÄrak-i ShÄh Ê¿Älam PÄdshÄh GhÄzÄ« khalad allÄh mulkahu ba-itmÄm rasÄ«d h |
|
Indian Drawings 13 (muraqqaʿ) University of Manchester, John Rylands Library |
Volume Eight? (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 2) fol. 2r: 11 ShaÊ¿ban 1188 (17 October 1774) signed by MÄ«r Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ê¿Aá¹Ä KhÄn |
14 folios (fragment of 40 folios?) (40.5â¯Ãâ¯28.5â¯cm) |
fol. 9r (shamsa): Huwa AllÄh al-Ê¿azÄ«z / muraqqaÊ¿-i chihil varaq ba-mufradÄt va qiá¹Ê¿Ät-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u taÊ¿lÄ«q / u shikasta ba-khaá¹á¹-i khushnavÄ«sÄn-i Ê¿uá¹Ärid raqam bÄbat-i sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är / navvÄb IftikhÄr al-Mulk ImtiyÄz al-Dawla / Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang / dÄma iqbÄluhu; fols. 3v and 4v signed by Mihr Chand |
Table 7.1
Polierâs surviving albums until 1780, completed in Faizabad or Delhi. (cont.)
|
Muraqqaʿ / present location |
Dates of dedications and contemporary calligraphic pieces / original volume numbers |
Number of folios |
Dedications / signed paintings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
I. 4594 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
9 Dhuâl-Hijja 1190 (19 January 1777) Volume Nine (labelled âNo. 9.â on the back cover; see app., âNoticeâ, p. 3) |
40 folios (41.5â¯Ãâ¯28.5â¯cm) |
fol. 40v (shamsa): Huwa AllÄh / Ä«n muraqqaÊ¿-i chihil varaq ba-khaá¹á¹-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q wa-ghayruhu az / khushnavÄ«sÄn-i rÅ«zigÄr bÄbat-i sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är navvÄb / IftikhÄr al-Mulk ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu / tÄrÄ«kh-i nuhum-i dhīḥijja sana 1190 HijrÄ« muá¹Äbiq-i sana-yi 18 julÅ«sÄ« tartÄ«b yÄft h; fols. 1v, 2r, 6r, 8r, 9r, 10r, 16r, 18r, 21r, 25r, 27r, 28r, 30r, 32r, 38r, 39v, 40r signed by Mihr Chand; fol. 36r signed by Dalchand; fol. 24r signed by Shivadas |
Figure 7.7
Military camp in front of a castle modelled on a European painting, signed by Mihr Chand, Polier album
John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester, Indian Drawings 13, fol. 4v
Given that Polierâs albums usually contain between thirty and forty folios, assembling these six albums must have proceeded at a breathtaking speed, which can only be explained by a thorough preparation of album folios collected during a much longer time-span.
The calligraphic compositions collected in albums I. 4598, I. 4599, and Indian Drawings 13 also underline that they belonged to the Faizabad/Delhi group since all three albums contain contemporary pieces, many of which are signed by Mir Muhammad Husayn Ê¿Ata Khan (active for Polier c. 1773â1780) whose work and relationship to Polier is extensively discussed by Will Kwiatkowski.86 Among the dated pieces in I.â¯4598 figure two other contemporary calligraphers, IÊ¿jaz Raqam Khan (fol. 10v, dated 1188 [1774/75]) and Hafiz Nurullah (fol. 26v, dated 1185 [1771/72]) (table 7.1).87 Album I. 4594 (Volume Nine), dated 19 January 1777, also belongs to this group, although it does not contain any dated contemporary calligraphic composition, but many excellent seventeenth-century pieces.88 It includes seventeen signed works of Mihr Chand,89 and two signed by the earlier Mughal painters Dalchand (active 1710â1760) and Shivadas (active around 1700).90
Will Kwiatkowski assumes that the three dated Berlin albums I. 4596, I. 4599, and I. 4594 and also the two undated I. 4595 and I. 4598 were produced around the same time, since they not only contain calligraphic pieces signed by Polierâs contemporaries, but also several extracts from the same manuscriptâfor instance, the Qaṣīdat al-Burda (Poem of the Mantle).91 I. 4595, however, probably belongs to the Lucknow group to be discussed in the next section.
4.1 Polierâs Surviving MuraqqaÊ¿s and Albums without Calligraphic Pieces from His Lucknow Years (1780â1787)
In 1780, Polier regained his position as architect at the Awadhi court, thanks to the intervention of General Sir Eyre Coote (1726â1783) and Sir Philip Francis (1740â1818), and thus moved to Lucknow, the new capital of Awadh since 1775. Threatened by Nawab Asaf al-Dawlaâs decision to expel all Europeans from Lucknow, on 31Â December 1781, Polier asked the East India Company to re-admit him. On 15Â April 1782, Polier was not only re-registered, but also promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, allowing him to remain in Lucknow and immerse himself in historical and Orientalist studies.92
Only six of Poliersâ muraqqaÊ¿s can be firmly attributed to his Lucknow years until 1787, before he definitely left India from Calcutta in January 1788. These are the Berlin albums I. 4595 (Volume Ten?) and I. 4597 (Volume Eleven or Fifteen?) in the Museum für Islamische Kunst, I 5005 (clearly identifably as Volume Twenty-Three, see app., p. 5) and I 5063 (Volume Seventeen, see app., p. 5) in the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, as well as two albums sold by Sothebyâs in 1966 (Volume Eleven or Fifteen?)93 and 1974 (perhaps an assembly of pages from the missing albums Volumes Four, Eighteen and Nineteen)94 (table 7.2). All six muraqqaÊ¿s contain calligraphic pieces with contemporary dates ranging from 1780/81 to 1784/85.
The first muraqqaÊ¿ to be discussed is I. 4595, one of the folios of which is a calligraphic composition on folio 7v signed by Hafiz Nurullah and presumably dated 1196 (1781/82), thus proving that the album was only completed after Polierâs move to Lucknow. This is in keeping with its shamsaâdevoid of the designation navvÄb (deputy), indicating that Polier at that time was no longer working for Emperor Shah Ê¿Alam II. It is the only shamsa that also mentions âpaintings [my emphasis] along with specimens of naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q and shikasta and others in the writing of the mastersâ.95 The other five albums were brought to completion after 1784. Album I 5063, inscribed âGenialogie [généalogie] des empereursâ in Polierâs hand, contains a pedigree of Mughal emperors entiteled nisbatnÄma-yi ShÄh Ê¿Älam. It bears a shamsa on its final page (the first page according to Persian reading orientation), which mentions Polierâs recently gained title KurnÄ«l (Colonel). Furthermore, like I. 4597 (fol. 13r), it contains a miniature copy after an oil painting of Prince Mirza Javan Bakht (1749â1788), the eldest son of Shah Ê¿Alam, painted by Johan Zoffany (1733â1810, in India 1783â1789) in June 1784 at the request of Warren Hastings.96 The sale offer includes a precise description of album I 5063 as âVolume Seventeenâ, mentioning also Javan Bakhtâs likeness as âthe portrait of the deceased royal princeâ (app., âNoticeâ, p. 4).
Another two muraqqaÊ¿s can be tentatively grouped among the products of Polierâs Lucknow workshop, due to their still extant inscribed numbers: the British Museum album 1920,0917,0.133â153âdiscussed by Malini Roy in the present volumeâinscribed Volume douzieme (Volume Twelve) on its first page (fol. 133r),97 and another recently discovered Polier album in Manchester (Indian Drawings 12),98 which is inscribed Volume quatorsieme (Volume Fourteen). Whereas the latter does not feature any dated contemporary specimen of calligraphy, the British Museumâs muraqqaÊ¿ contains a Persian quatrain in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q (on fol. 145r), signed by Ê¿Ata Khanâs teacher IÊ¿jaz Raqam Khan, who helped Polier with administrative services during his employment at ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawlaâs court until 1775.99
Included in the present list (table 7.2) are also five Lucknow albums produced for Polier with different contentsâa RÄgamÄlÄ set with thirty-six illustrations of modes of Hindustani music (Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, I 5062; clearly identifiable as Volume Sixteen, see app., p. 4),100 two volumes titled by Polier as âDrawings of Hindou Mythologyâ (British Library, London, Or 4769 and Or 4770; corresponding to Volume Twenty-Four and Twenty-Five; see app. âNoticeâ, p. 5),101 and two recently discovered volumes housed in the Wellcome Library in London, showing Indian men and women as representatives of various customs and professions (see app. âNoticeâ, p. 5). These were most probably Volume Twenty-One and Twenty-Two.102 In the present essay, I do not count these bound setsâanother RÄgamÄlÄ with eighteen miniatures corresponding to Volume Thirteen (app., âNoticeâ, p. 4) is lostâamong Polierâs muraqqaÊ¿s because all of their folios are blank on the reverse side and no calligraphic pieces are included in any of them. Due to the blank versos, an opening of an album of this group thus either shows two flanking paintings followed by a double-page spread of two empty pages (British Library albums Or 4769 and Or 4770), or it bears in each opening a painting juxtaposed to an empty page (I 5062 and the two Wellcome Library albums). These volumes belong to a different category, testifying to Polierâs interest in Hindu cultures.103
In sum, of the twenty-five albums mentioned in the sale offer,104 sixteen muraqqaÊ¿s and five albums mostly linked to Hindu cultures, occupations, customs and manners (with blank versos)âtwenty-one in totalâseem to have survived.
Table 7.2
Polierâs surviving albums from 1780 to 1787, completed in Lucknow.
|
Muraqqaʿ or album without calligraphy / present location |
Dates of contemporary calligraphic pieces / original volume numbers |
Number of folios |
Dedications / signed paintings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
I. 4595 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
fol. 1r: blank central field; Volume Ten? (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 3) fol. 7v: 1196? (1781/82) signed by ḤÄfiẠNÅ«rullÄh |
36 folios (originally 40 folios?) (40.0â¯Ãâ¯28.0â¯cm) |
fol. 36v (shamsa): Ä«n muraqqaÊ¿-i chihil varaq-i taá¹£vÄ«rÄt maÊ¿ahu /qiá¹Ê¿ahÄ-yi naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u shikasta wa-ghayruhu ba-khaá¹á¹-i Å«stÄdÄn / bÄbat-i sarkÄr ImtiyÄz al-Dawla IftikhÄr al-Mulk Mayjir PÅ«lÄ«r / BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu; fols. 2r, 22r, 35r signed by Mihr Chand |
|
I. 4597 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin |
fol. 1r: blank central field; Volume Eleven or Fifteen? (see app., âNoticeâ, pp. 3â4); fols. 9v, 11v, 12v, 14v, 16v, 18v, 24v, 26v: 1195 (1780/81); fols. 7v: 1196 (1780/81); fol. 4v: 1197 (1781/82); fol. 5v: 1198 (1783/84); fols. 13v, 25v: 1199 (1784/85); fol. 13r: portrait of Javan Bakht (after 1784) |
40 folios (40.0â¯Ãâ¯28.0â¯cm) |
fol. 40v: empty shamsa |
|
Sotheby & Co, London, 12 December 1966, lots 1â34 (muraqqaÊ¿) |
Volume Eleven or Fifteen? (see app., âNoticeâ, pp. 3â4) lots 5, 15, 23: 1195 (1780/81); lot 18: 1199 (1784/85) |
34 folios (originally 40 folios?) (ca. 37â¯Ãâ¯26.5â¯cm) |
|
|
1920,0917,0.133-153 (formerly Add. 23,609) (muraqqaʿ) British Museum, London |
Volume douzieme / Volume Twelve (see also app., âNoticeâ, p. 3) |
21 folios (originally 40) (40.7â¯Ãâ¯29.6â¯cm) |
|
|
Indian Drawings 12 (muraqqaʿ) University of Manchester, Rylands Library |
fol. 1r: Volume quatorsieme / Volume Fourteen (see also app., âNoticeâ, p. 4) |
42 folios (originally 40) (40.5â¯Ãâ¯28.4â¯cm) |
|
|
I 5062 album without calligraphy Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin |
Volume Sixteen (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 4), RÄgamÄlÄ (âVolume seizième, Musiqueânommé Raajmalaâ French title apparently given by Polier, of which the original inscription is no longer extant. Mentioned in a list [with descriptions] of the thirty-six paintings by a keeper of the Berlin Museums) |
36 folios (31â¯Ãâ¯23.1â¯cm) |
|
|
I 5063 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin |
Volume Seventeen (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 5) fol. 1r: âGenialogie [généalogie] des Empereursâ; fols. 2r, 3r, 5r, 9r, 16r, 18r, 20r: 1195 (1780/81); fols. 10r, 15r, 17r: 1196 (1781/82); fol. 1v: portrait of Javan Bakht (after 1784) |
20 folios (originally 21) (39.8â¯Ãâ¯28.2â¯cm) |
fol. 22v (shamsa): Huwa AllÄh / Ä«n muraqqaÊ¿-i bÄ«st varaq ba-khaá¹á¹-i naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u naskh wa-ghayruhu / az khushnavÄ«sÄn-i rÅ«zigÄr bÄbat-i sarkÄr IftikhÄr al-Mulk / ImtiyÄz al-Dawla KurnÄ«l PÅ«lÄ«r BahÄdur ArsalÄn Jang dÄma iqbÄluhu; fol. 14v ascribed to Mihr Chand |
|
583133i (âvolume 1â) album without calligraphy / Wellcome Library, London |
Volume Twenty-One? (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 5; labelled in Polierâs hand â321. [originally â21â without â3â; â2â underneath erased] Domestiques et gens du Commun etc.â) |
31 folios (26.2â¯Ãâ¯33.7â¯cm) |
Table 7.2
Polierâs surviving albums from 1780 to 1787, completed in Lucknow. (cont.)
|
Muraqqaʿ or album without calligraphy / present location |
Dates of contemporary calligraphic pieces / original volume numbers |
Number of folios |
Dedications / signed paintings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
583226i (âvolume 2â) album without calligraphy / Wellcome Library, London |
Volume Twenty-Two? (see app., âNotice,â p. 5; labelled in Polierâs hand â321. [originally â22â without â3â and the second â2â replaced by â1â; â3â underneath erased] Faquirs Domestiques et gens du Comun [sic] Palanquins etc.â) |
30 folios (26.2â¯Ãâ¯33.8â¯cm) |
|
|
I 5005 (muraqqaʿ) Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin |
Volume Twenty-Three (see app., âNoticeâ, p. 5) fols. 1v (signed by ḤÄfiẠNÅ«rullÄh), 4v, 9v, 10v, 11v, 13v: 1195 (1780/81); fols. 3v, 12v, 13v: 1196 (1781/82); fol. 15v: 1199 (1784/85) |
16 folios (46.0â¯Ãâ¯62.5 à cm) |
fol. 16v: empty shamsa |
|
Or 4769 album without calligraphy / British Library, London |
Volume Twenty-Four (see app., âNoticeâ, pp. 5â7); âDrawings of Hindou Mythologyâ, vol. 1 |
32 folios (34.5â¯Ãâ¯26â¯cm) |
|
|
Or 4770 album without calligraphy / British Library, London |
Volume Twenty-Five (see app., âNoticeâ, pp. 5â7); âDrawings of Hindou Mythologyâ, vol. 2 |
32 folios (34.5â¯Ãâ¯26â¯cm) |
|
|
Sotheby & Co, London, 27 November 1974, lots 723â769 (Phillipps MS. 6730) (muraqqaÊ¿) |
Volume number? Perhaps an assembly of remains of the missing Volume Four with additions of later calligraphy from Volumes Eighteen and Nineteen (see app., âNoticeâ, pp. 2 and 4); lot 768: 1193 (1778/79); lot 738: 1194 (1779/80); lots 725, 740, 745, 746, 755, 763: 1195 (1780/81); lots 739, 747, 754, 756: 1196 (1781/82); lot 764: 1198 (1783/84): lots 727, 799: 1199 (1784/85) |
46 folios (perhaps an assembly of pages from several now missing albums) (39.6â¯Ãâ¯29.0â¯cm) |
lot 723 (verso): empty shamsa; lot 723 and lot 757 signed by Mihr Chand |
4.2 Polierâs Last Years in Lucknow: Gifts to European Friends (1784â1787)
It was mainly through the impact of two friends, William Jones, a philologist trained in Oxford who had started his Indian career as a judge of low rank at the Supreme Court at Fort William in Calcutta in 1783 and soon became an eminent scholar of Persian and Sanskrit, as well as the governor-general Warren Hastings, an eager promoter of Indology,105 that Polier himself embarked on Orientalist studies.106 After Jonesâ establishment of the Asiatick Society of Bengal on 15Â January 1784, Polier started giving albums and single paintings as gifts to friends in India. Two albums of exclusively calligraphic content were assembled for William Jones on Polierâs demand, both presumably originally bound in concertina format. However, the first calligraphy album ended up in Warren Hastingsâ collection in 1784, when Hastings visited Polier in Lucknow, shortly before his departure to England in February 1785. It is now housed in the National Art Library (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, MSL/1858/4765).107 It was recently identified by Susan Stronge and Behnaz Atighi-Moghaddam who found it mentioned in a letter from Polier to Hastings, dated 15Â July 1786:108
Dear Sir!
I have learnt with peculiar satisfaction, your safe passage and arrival in England and the good reception you have met with in general, from all ranks of people. [â¦] When you was last at Lacknow [sic], I took the liberty of troubling you with a Moracka of fine Oriental writings for Sir Wm Jones.âIn the hurry occasioned by your departure you forgot to send it, and he on his side omitted to remind you. I have since replaced this book with another I have given to Sir Wmâand I have now to request youâll accept of the one you have by you as a small token of my gratitude & regard.
I have no doubt but it will give you pleasure to hear, that in consequence of the arrangement, you took when last with us, and your recommendations in my favour I have already received a considerable part of my debt from the Vezir,109 and am in a fair way of realizing the whole before Nov.ber next, if no sinister accident intervenes.âIt is to you my dear Sir, that I owe the bonum, and I really want words to express all the gratitude I feel on the occasion; [â¦]âhad you not assisted me, you would not wonder at the warmth of any expression on the subject.âYet my heart feels much more than I can say.
I am now enabled by this event to follow my inclination, which has long pointed out to me a trip to England, as a thing of absolute necessity; [â¦].
I shall not forget to bring with me the plan and elevation of Mr. Clevlandâs monument,110 wch I learn is at last nearly completed.
With my heart wishes for your health and prosperity I remain with the highest respect.
Dear Sir
Your most obed.nt and most h.ble servant
Ant. H. Polier111
If Polierâs financial difficulties had not been resolved through Hastingsâ intervention, he would not have been able to make plans to retire and leave India. Given the immense gratitude that Polier therefore felt towards Hastings, it is noteable that he did not give him a muraqqaÊ¿ with paintings and calligraphies as gift, although he certainly knew of Hastingsâ own album collection.112 Whereas Polier seems to have seen in Hastings a competent politician and also a personal friend, he truly admired Jones for his Orientalist scholarship.113 In the above-quoted letter, Polier also mentions a replacement for the âMoracka of fine Oriental writings for Sir Wm Jonesâ ceded to Hastings. This passage came to my mind when, in April 2022, Jake Benson and I looked through a hitherto undocumented calligraphy album with Polier-style margins (Persian MS 10) in Manchesterâs John Rylands Library,114 and when he pointed to a poem in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q script subtitled qaṣīda ba-nÄm-i Sir Wilyam JÅ«ns (âode to the name of Sir William Jonesâ) on its first page, signed by Muhammad Ê¿Ali and dated 1200 (1785/86).115 Later on, Will Kwiatkowski identified the poem as largely borrowed from a well-known ode by Afzal al-Din Khaqani (b. c. 1127, d. between 1186/87 and 1199), which is dedicated to a Christian patron.116 Kwiatkowski has generously shared his translation of the ode in praise of Jones, whose unidentified author misspelled many of the Christian names, festivals, and terms used by Khaqani (whose mother was a former Nestorian Christian). It reads as follows [the attached footnotes are all by Kwiatkowski]:
OdeHo, O our Master, Sir William Jones!Jesusâ ordinances are firm thanks to you.It is fitting that the heavens should take prideIn the era of such a wise Justice as you!When you opened the school of knowledge117Religion took on a new aspect, became refreshed.The bishop consults you about his problems,Luke118 is the pupil of your school.Your protection is the place of worship of the patriarchs,119Your door is the abode and refuge of the Bagratids.If Qusta120 were to see you before him,He would no longer consult Jacob or Malka,121He would call you the second Ptolemy,122(The attributes of) the lofty Phillip123 have been bestowed on you.If Dioscorides were to see youHe would read many riddles in your writing.Until the fast of Fifty, the Feast of the TempleIs underway among the followers of the religion of Jesus.124May life and living be joyful to the utmost,By John, the deacon and Bahira!125Loyalty poured, like jewels, from its lofty natureThese splendid verses through the tip of the reed pen.The poor Muhammad Ê¿Ali wrote [it] in the Hijri year one thousand and two hundred (1785/86).126
Thanks to Bensonâs discovery of the poem dedicated to Jones, Kwiatkowskiâs translation of it and Bensonâs comparative study of the whole album together with the National Art Library album (MSL/1858/4765) in the present volume, we now can say with certainty that the Rylands Persian MS 10 is indeed the replacement album. It was rebound as a codex in the early-to-mid-nineteenth century by a European bookbinder, as suggested by Benson, and thus is no longer in concertina format.127 Polier himself also owned two calligraphic albums, now lost, which are mentioned in the sale offer: âThe volumes 18 and 19 small folio contain a collection of the most beautiful and most sought-after examples of Persian and Arab writings by the greatest masters and gathered with the greatest of careâ (app., âNoticeâ, p. 4).128
Other gifts given by Polier in these years were oblong leaves with topographical views. The best known are part of an album, of which seventeen pages and the cover with an inscribed flyleaf are now preserved in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts) and another four pages in San Diego and Boston.129 According to the flyleaf inscription âFor / Lady Coote / from / Her most obedient H[onoura]ble Ser[van]t / A[nthony] P[olier]â,130 this album was a gift to Lady Coote (born as Susanna Hutchinson, d. 1812), the wife of Sir Eyre Coote. The shamsa (1982.2.70.10) mentions âtwelve leavesâ (davÄzdah varaq).131 Since twenty-one pages with blank reverses have survived, this indicates that the twelve album folios were at some point split into twenty-four pages.132 Lady Coote perhaps received the album shortly after the death of her husband on 28 April 1783, prior to her return to London in 1784, as a sign of gratitude since it was through the intervention of her husband that Polier was reinstated to his former post as an architect-engineer at the nawabi court in 1780.133 At that time, Polier also continued working on âthe historical memoirs [â¦] for the late Eyre Cooteâ (âles mémoires historiques que jâavais composé [sic] pour feu le général Cootesâ).134
As already noted by Joachim Bautze, eight folios of the very similar Polier album in Berlin I 5005 closely resemble the Lady Coote Album compositions.135 Stylistically, they can be attributed to Mihr Chandâs workshop.136 The folios of both albums are of almost the same size (San Francisco pages: c. 45â¯Ãâ¯61â¯cm; I 5005: c. 46â¯Ãâ¯62.5â¯cm). The calligraphic pieces in the Berlin album are dated between 1195 (1780/81) and 1199 (1784/85) (table 7.2), while among the extant calligraphic pages of the Lady Coote Album there are only compositions exclusively dated to 1195 (1780/81), all of them signed by Muhammad Ê¿Ali.137 The very large folios of these two albums depart from the traditional vertical muraqqaÊ¿ and seem to have been destined to suit the tastes of a European audience familiar with horizontal landscape paintings.138
Polier also used single topographical views as gifts. A painting in the British Museum showing acrobats performing on a tightrope in the harem bears an inscription on its blank reverse: âPresented to Ozias Humphry [English portrait painter; 1742â1810, active in India 1785â1787] at Lucknow May 11th 1786 by Col. Anthony Pollierâ.139 It is considerably smaller (29.6â¯Ãâ¯42â¯cm) than the versions of the same composition kept in the Berlin Polier (I 5005, fol. 14r: 46.0â¯Ãâ¯62.3â¯cm) and the Lady Coote Album (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1983.2.12; 44.4â¯Ãâ¯60.7â¯cm).140 Such standard birdâs-eye views of buildings and places appear to have been produced in great number in Polierâs workshop at Lucknow. Another prominent example is the Red Fort in Delhi, of which a total of five very similar versions have been preserved.141
In a letter dated 16 April 1783 to Sir Elijah Impey, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal from 1774 to 1783, Polier mentions two views of the Taj Mahal in Agra, to be presented to Lady Coote and Lady Mary Impey (fig. 7.8):
Figure 7.8
Last page from a letter by Antoine Polier to Sir Elijah Impey, dated 16Â April 1783
British Library, Add MS 16264, fol. 70v
Dear Sir
By a Servant of Colonel Morgan who left Lawnpour [Lucknow?] some time ago.âI sent a parcel directed to Lady Coote, but in case of her absence, then to be delivered to Lady Impey.âThat package contains two paintings of the famous Mausoleum at Agra, one of which is for Lady Impey, the other for Lady Coote.âMay I request of you the favour, to present Lady Impey from me, with that addressed to her, with my best respects, and to deliver the other, packed up in the cover, to Mr. Croftes, to be sent to Lady Coote by the first opportunity.
I acknowledge I have been very remiss in not sending you before this, the continuation of the narrative.âBut I had to write the whole over again, as my manuscript was not in-telligible to anyone but myselfâand I have not till lately, been able to get a person to make out the copy I intended for you; How-ever in a few daysâI hope to fulfil intirely [sic], my promise to you. [â¦]
I have the honour to be with great respect
Dear Sir
Your most obedient very devoted H[onora]ble Lieut.
Ant. H. Polier
P.S. On the back of the painting of the Mausoleum, is wrote [sic] in Persian, an account of the building, dimensions, cost of the mausoleum from the History of the reign of Shah Jehan who caused that building to be erected.142
Figure 7.9aâb
Reconstruction of a double-page spread: assemblage of calligraphic pieces in thuluth, naskh, and nastaʿlīq (signed Muḥammad ʿAlī and dated 1199 [1784/85]) (left page) and Taj Mahal (bottom right), Mughal, eighteenth century, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, I 5005, fols. 15vâ16r
The paintings of the Taj Mahal most probably looked like folio 16r of I 5005 (fig. 7.9b). The main building, completed in 1643, houses the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal (1593â1631), the favorite wife of Shah Jahan (r. 1628â1658). It is seen here from the Yamuna River, flanked by two triple-domed and triple-arched side buildings, of which the one on the right (to the west) is a mosque. Interestingly, the tripartite scheme of the calligraphy on the facing left page echoes that of the Taj Mahal with its two flanking buildings on the right-hand side (fig. 7.9a). Furthermore, the imagined ground plan of the main building with its four minarets is reflected in the central calligraphic panel composed of four lines of calligraphy, surrounded by two lines of text on each side. One cannot help but think that the juxtaposition of the two pages was meant to enhance the perfect symmetry of this monumental site.
To sum up, it seems that Polier became a generous gift-giver towards his European friends and colleagues only after he had been finally awarded the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on 15 April 1782, which the directors of the East India Company in London had denied to him earlier in his career.143 Polierâs generosity might have been propelled by a growing sense of gratitude towards his friends and also by the prospect of his imminent departure from India. In a letter written in March 1779 to Antonie-Noé Polier, one of his uncles in Lausanne, Polier had already announced his plans to leave India, once he would have been repaid the large debt that Nawab Asaf al-Dawla owed him.144
Compared to Polierâs collection of albums, assembled in the 1770s and early 1780s for his own delight, the recorded gifts are quite few in number. In the last section of this essay, I will therefore try to elucidate some characteristics of Polierâs own collection with a few examples.
5 MuraqqaÊ¿ I. 4598 for Polierâs Own Delight: To Be Viewed from Both Ends
Polierâs surviving sixteen muraqqaÊ¿s listed in Tables 7.1 and 7.2 diverge from Mughal muraqqaÊ¿s of the seventeenth centuryâcomposed of alternating openings of two facing paintings (see fig. 7.16aâb) and two facing calligraphies145âby combining instead a painting on the right and a calligraphic piece on the left. This innovation and its implications can best be demonstrated by taking a close look at album I. 4598 (fig. 7.10aâb). To recap, this album bears no date in its dedicatory inscription (see fig. 7.12) but was probably produced during Polierâs four-year stay in Delhi, since it mentions Polierâs position as âdeputyâ (of the emperor).
In the reconstruction of the original sequence of the forty folios of I. 4598 (disbound in the early 1930s), we notice two conflicting numbering systems in the pagination, highlighted here in white and pink. These take into account the opposite directions of European (pink) and Persian (white) reading habits. The pink numerals refer to the Latin ordinal numbers that Polier presumably himself wrote in black ink underneath the paintings. They conform to the present museumâs pagination and the European reading directionâhere from left to right, from top to bottom (fig. 7.10aâb). Folio 34 is missing.146 If viewers opened the album from the other end, however, they would be guided by the numerals written in black Persian script, in the upper left corner of each calligraphy, repeated here in whiteâfrom right to left, from bottom to top. Even though there exist five inconsistenciesâhere marked by green frames147âit is clear that the Persian numerals relate to the reading orientation of an Islamic codex. The only viable explanation for the inconsistencies would be that the album was first assembled according to the calligraphy numbers and was then re-arranged in some places. Thereafter, Polier wrote the European numbers underneath the paintings to definitely fix the new order of the pages.
Figure 7.10a
Reconstruction of the original sequence of forty folios of Polier album I. 4598, fols. 1râ23r
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598
Figure 7.10b
Reconstruction of the original sequence of forty folios of Polier album I. 4598, fols. 23vâ40v
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598
To make this clearer, let us have a closer look at the first and last folios. The first page (fol. 1r) features a floral border around an entirely blank centre. It is not clear whether the empty central field was meant to be filled with a content description as in I 5063 (containing the pedigree of the Mughal emperors) or the volume number inscription as in I. 4599 (fol. 1r). Alternatively, it could have been reserved for the dedicatory inscription to a future owner. If the album is opened like a European book, the first openingâconsidered as a frontispieceâfeatures two facing pictures (fig. 7.11aâb): The painting on the left shows a standing courtier inscribed in the red margin below as Īraj KhÄn (fol. 1v) and bears the European number â1.â beneath the painting. But it is also inscribed with the Persian cipher
According to the European reading direction, the last painting in this album bears the ordinal number â40.â (fol. 40r), whereas the facing calligraphy is inscribed with number
He is The Almighty! / This album of forty leaves with calligraphic exercises and specimens of naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q (nastaÊ¿lÄ«q), shikasta and others in the script of contemporary calligraphers [was made] for the excellent commander (sarkÄr-i fayż-Äs̱Är), the deputy of exalted dignity (navvÄb-i vÄlÄjanÄb), IftikhÄr al-Mulk, ImtiyÄz al-Dawla Major Polier BahÄdur ArsalÄn JangâMay his good fortune be perpetual.148
As in most Polier albums, calligraphic pieces are placed here on the left and paintings on the right-hand side, which signifies that for a Persian reader the calligraphy pieces are located on the recto and the paintings on the verso pages.149
Juxtapositions of painting and calligraphy frequently feature formal and thematic parallels. For example, the right side of an opening (numbered â8.â) shows a crouching Indian woman at her toilette (fig. 7.13b), inspired by a replica of the famous antique statue of the Crouching Venus conventionally attributed to Doidalsas (a Greek sculptor, active in the mid-third century BCE).150 The page is faced by a four-line poem (rubÄÊ¿Ä«) signed al-faqÄ«r Ê¿AlÄ« (âthe poor Ê¿Aliâ), bearing the Persian cipher
Figure 7.11aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: a standing courtier inscribed Īraj KhÄn, Mughal, eighteenth century (left page) and portrait of a Mughal prince riding an elephant, signed Zayn al-Ê¿ÄbidÄ«n 1018 (1609/10) (right page), Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598, fols. 1vâ2r
With my face in the dust of helplessness I sayevery morning at dawn when the breeze comes,O you whom I will never forget,Do you remember me [literally, âyour slaveâ] at all?151
Although one may consider both pages as separate artworks to be viewed independently,152 the painting seems to relate to the verses. On the one hand, Polier and other Persian-speaking viewers might have interpreted the woman as the ashamed âslaveâ (banda) or even associated her with the slave of love topic in Persian poetryâusually linked to male figures, however.153 On the other hand, a Hindu viewer would presumably rather interpret her as Radha, the model devotee longing for union with the god Krishna: In contemporaneous Rajput painting, Radha is frequently depicted crouching in a similar way at her toilette while combing her hair with her hand.154
Figure 7.12
Dedicatory page, Mughal style, c. 1774â1780, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598, fol. 40v
Figure 7.13aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: calligraphic verses in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q calligraphic composition signed al-faqÄ«r Ê¿Ali, Mughal, seventeenthâeighteenth century (left page); a crouching woman at her toilette, Mughal, eighteenth century (right page), Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598, fols. 7vâ8r
Meaningful correlations between figural imagery and calligraphy are not entirely new. As Milo Beach has shown, in the Gulshan Album compiled for Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605â1627), there are numerous marginal figures, usually placed around the calligraphic compositions, that relate to some detail of the text.155 Strikingly, SaÊ¿diâs quatrain (fig. 7.13a) can already be found on one page of the Gulshan Album, where it is written and illuminated in almost the same manner. Here, the marginal figure of a turbaned man kneeling in front of a seated prince with his face touching the ground is placed directly above the verses. As observed by Beach, the âmarginal scene of homage (above) is certainly intended to reflect the central text passageâ,156 so that the turbaned man serves as a visual response to the first words, âwith my face in the dust of helplessness [â¦]â.
Figure 7.14aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: a poem in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q signed aqall al-Ê¿ibÄd KashmÄ«[r]Ä« (the lowest of the slaves Kashmiri), Mughal, dated 992 (1584) (left page) and a painting showing a kingfisher, Mughal, eighteenth century (right page), Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598, fols. 5vâ6r
Another telling juxtaposition of text and image can be found in a diagonally written poem in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q (dated 992 [1584] and signed by Kashmiri, perhaps Muhammad Husayn Kashmiri, active c. 1560â1611), flanked by the naturalistic depiction of a kingfisher with its beak slightly turned upwards (fig. 7.14aâb). The poem by an unidentified author reads:
Everyone who is a guest at the table of love is satiated by the blessings of both worlds / Love is the direction of prayer for wise men, the Kaaba is only a pebble from the desert / Search for the greatness of love, because if the ruby of love can reach even an ant, then it [the greatness of love] is Sulayman.157
Figure 7.15aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: exercise on joined combinations (murakkabÄt) of the letter Ê¿ayn in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q (left page) and a painting showing two guinea fowl (right page), Mughal, eighteenth century, Polier album
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4598, fols. 14vâ15r
The text refers to earthly and spiritual love and culminates in a praise of Solomonâs great love that even encompasses a tiny ant.158 According to Islamic tradition, the wisdom of the prophet-king Sulayman included his ability to speak to animals. Hence, it is possible that these two pages were deliberately arranged together to enhance each otherâs meaning and thereby flatter the eye and erudition of the Persian-speaking connoisseur, such as Polier himself.
A third example of a purely formal relationship links two lines of a calligraphic exerciseâon joined combinations (murakkabÄt) of the letter Ê¿aynâon a celadon-green background with the painting of two chromatically corresponding guinea fowlâinscribed by the albumâs compiler as murgh-i zarrÄ«n (âgolden henâ) (fig. 7.15b). The greyish sky is echoed in the border of the calligraphic piece on the left page (fig. 7.15a).
By contrast, in traditional Mughal albums, the illumination of the margins is much more homogenousâas can be seen, for example, in an opening from the Dara Shikoh Album of c. 1630â1633 (fig. 7.16aâb).159 Here, as well as in other seventeenth-century Mughal albums, facing paintings usually relate to each other thematically and formally. In Figure 7.16, the juxtaposition of two different species of birds, a drake on the left and a night heron on the right, visually harmonises because a pond and a pink flower are placed in the foreground of each picture.
Figure 7.16aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: a drake (left page) and a night heron (right page), Mughal, c. 1630, Dara Shikoh Album, c. 1630â1633
British Library, London, Add Or 3129, fols. 10râ19v
Meaningful juxtapositions of painting and calligraphy are not limited to Polierâs album I. 4598. In I. 4599, for example, a miniature showing a tiger attacking two nilgai is flanked on the left side by a passage in shikasta (signed by Polierâs friend Muhammad Ê¿Ata Khan), drawn from an animal fable in the AnvÄr-i SuhaylÄ« (Light of Canopus) of Husayn WaÊ¿iz al-Kashifi (1436â1504) (fig. 7.17aâb). This famous prose work is based on a collection of Arabic fables of ancient origin (KalÄ«la wa Dimna), in which one of the major themes is the hostility between animals.
On another opening in the same album (fols. 31vâ32r), the painting on the right shows a lynx ready to attack a herd of sheep and again is faced by an extract from the AnvÄr-i SuhaylÄ« on the left. Although the stories told in both passages (see Kwiatkowskiâs essay) are not directly related to the paintings, the positioning of the writing in both cases visually corresponds to the facing composition: In Figure 7.17, the diagonally placed shikasta lines echo the diagonal slant of the panicking nilgais.
Figure 7.17aâb
Reconstruction of an opening: passage from the AnvÄr-i SuhaylÄ« (Lights of Canopus) in shikasta, signed Muḥammad Ê¿Ata KhÄn, c. 1773â1776 (left page) and painting of a tiger attacking two nilgai, Mughal eighteenth century (right page), Polier album, dated 11 September 1776
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 4599, fols. 27vâ28r
But why did Polierâs atelier turn away from standardised Mughal juxtapositions of two facing paintings alternating with two facing calligraphic compositions in the first place? Again, Polier might have taken inspiration from his colleague Gentil in Faizabad, whose atelier perhaps introduced this innovation. In Gentilâs album Od 49,160 for example, which is preserved in its original state, seven lines of nastaÊ¿lÄ«q are juxtaposed with the painting of a man carrying another man without feet on his shoulders (fig. 7.18aâb). The first two verses are a couplet from SaÊ¿diâs BÅ«stÄn (Orchard): âRefuge of subject men! Your heart be happy! / May Muslimdom by your endeavour prosper!â161 These lines somehow seem to match Gentilâs own (erroneous) identification of the painting on the right side in his inventory as 1 St mahometan qui porta Mahomet (â1 [one] Muslim saint carrying Mohammadâ).162 The reason why Gentil misidentified the moustachioed man wearing a golden helmet and sitting on the shoulders of a taller running man as Mohammad (the founder of Muslimhood) may either be the pairing with SaÊ¿diâs verses or the rose in his hand, which has served as floral metaphor for Mohammadâs physical appearance since the earliest times of Islam.163 Maybe Gentil also wanted to acknowledge the existence of a Muslim equivalent to St Christopher carrying the Christ Child. We can also observe here a tendencyâsimilar to Polierâs slightly later albumsâto use corresponding colours and geometric similarities to link the writing to the painting. However, the miniature actually comes from an Indian sub-imperial manuscript of the cosmography of Qazwini (1203â1283), as noted by Hurel: The man with the missing feet actually depicts a so-called duvÄl pÄy, a âleather legâ-creature.164 Qazwini reports that a handsome creature once jumped on the shoulders of a sailor who had landed on an island in the sea of Zanzibar. It firmly locked its soft legs around the sailorâs neck, like leather straps, driving him from one tree to another to pluck fresh fruit to eat. In another two still intact Gentil albums (according to the sequence of folios given in the âListe Gentilâ), there are similar combinations of calligraphic pieces on the left with paintings on the right page (Od 60 and Od 50).165 This again brings us to consider Gentilâs collection as a kind of stepping stone for building Polierâs own magnificient collection of muraqqaÊ¿s.
Figure 7.18aâb
Double-page spread: couplets in nastaÊ¿lÄ«q signed Ê¿IyÄnÄ« from the BÅ«stÄn (Orchard) of SaÊ¿di (left page) and a man carrying a duvÄl pÄy (leather leg-creature) on his shoulders, subimperial Mughal style, late sixteenthâseventeenth century (right page), Gentil album
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Réserve Od 49, fols. 17vâ18r
6 Concluding Remarks
Notwithstanding the initial impact of Gentilâs workshop in Faizabad in the early 1770s on Polierâs studio run by Mihr Chand from c. 1773 until c. 1785, Polierâs sixteen still extant muraqqaÊ¿s discussed in this essay remain unsurpassed in terms of their elaborate assemblage, skilfully illuminated margins and the variety and quality of their contents. The albums appear to reflect his double identity as member of the Mughal elite and colonial Company officer, since each album can be consulted and enjoyed from both ends, opened and studied either in a Persian or in a European manner.
In total, there were at least twenty-five albums; of these, four are missing, while five contained images related to Hindu culture with blank versos and thus cannot be addressed as muraqqaÊ¿s in the strict sense. Except for three albums that were specifically made to flatter Sir William Jones and Sir Eyre Cooteâs wife Susanna, and apart from a few loose topographical paintings presented to friends, Polier kept his collection for his own delight and probably only allowed those who shared his passion for Indian albums take a closer look at these magnificent artworks.
Appendix: âNoticeâ (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Archives, Ye 1 rés., boîte 1723â1847, seven unbound handwritten pages)
page 1
Notice
dâune collection de 38 volumes de peintures indiennes, en miniature et guache, dont 25 volumes représentent différens objets, scavoir [savoir], portraits dâhommes et de femmes, de princes et autres personnes illustres, des chasses, des animaux-éléphants, costumes orientaux, emblèmes mithologie, écriture etcetera et 13 grands volumes infolio contenant audela de 100 feuilles qui représentent différens objets dâhistoire naturelle, tant en fleurs et plantes, que oiseaux et quelques reptiles etcetera scavoir [savoir].
Les volumes nos. 1 et 2 folio contiennent audela de 60 miniatures chaquâun, avec plusieurs exemplaires de belle écriture persanne, les miniatures représentent des portraits de rois, princes, Saints et autres personnes illustres, quelques femmes, et autres objets, dont le détail seroit trop long, les 2 volumes sont estimésâEcus 600. le volume no. 3 grand infolio [Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, I. 4596] contient une trentaine de superbes peintures la plupart anciennes et sorties du cabinet des empereurs dont plusieurs sont de la plus grande beauté et bien preservées, parmi, ces 30, il y en a cinq dont le propriétaire a refusé dans lâinde cinq cent Ecus pièce; lâune desquelles représente lâentrée de Dara Schtro [Dara Shikoh] fils aimé de lâempereur Shah jehan [Shah Jahan] dans
page 2
la forteresse de Dehly [Delhi] [I. 4596, fol. 15r], la 2ème lâentrée de Shah Jahan dans la forteresse de Agra [I. 4596, fol. 3r], la 3ème lâempereur jahan-guir [Jahangir] dans la mosquée après la priere finie, avec toute sa cour [I. 4596, fol. 13r]. La 4ème lâempereur Shah jehan [Shah Jahan] sur son tróne donnant audience [I. 4596, fol. 11r], et la 5ème la princesse Zaibulnissa [Zib al-Nisaʾ Begum] fille de lâempereur aurangzeb [Aurangzeb] se divertissant sur les terrasses du palais impérial, la nuit de la fête de shabrat [shab-i barÄt] ou des lanternes et lumieres [I. 4596, fol. 23r]; plusieurs autres représentent les plus beaux éléphants de lâempereur Shah Jehan [Shah Jahan] la plupart montés par Dara Sheho [Dara Shikoh] etcetera. Chaque peinture dâailleurs a sur le revers des exemplaires de la plus belle écriture arabe et persanne par les meilleurs maitres. Ce volume est estimé Ecus 5600. Le 4ème vol. grand in/4° contient une 50aine de peintures anciennes de la même nature que les nos. 1 et 2 et est estimé Ecus 200. Le 5ème volume in/4° contient 50 petites et excellentes peintures en miniature, ayant chacune ou des papillons de chine peints sur le revers ou quelques beaux exemplaires dâécriture persanne [Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, I. 4601 and Louvre, K 3431], le volume est estimé Ecus 350. Le vol. no. 6 folio contient 40 excellentes peintures en miniature ayant chacune sur le revers des examples de la plus belle écriture persanne, le volume a beaucoup de portraits de femmes dans différens costumes et est estimé Ecus 2000. Le 7ème [Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, I. 4599] et le 8ème volume folio, contientient [sic] chacun 40 peintures en miniature, ai [et ?] de même chacune sur le revers un exemplaire de belle écriture, et représentent divers portraits, costumes
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et autres objets curieux de lâInde, les 8 volumes sont estimés Ecus 800. Le 9ème vol. folio [Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, I. 4594], contient 40 superbes miniatures dont quelques unes de la plus grande beauté et délicatesse, et par les meilleurs peintres de lâInde, ont appartenu aux empereurs mogols, et sont ornées de belles écritures de leur main même, sur le revers, le volume est très soigné et choisi avec le plus grand soin, le propriétaire en a refusé dans lâInde même, dix milles Ecus, il est unique, et il serait impossible de le remplacer, même dans ce païs [pays] la, puisque les peintres de différens morceaux nâéxistent plus, le morceau représentant les deux faquirs en conversation avec le chanteur du violon audessous [I. 4594, fol. 7v], qui a appartenu au malheureux Dara Sheho [Dara Shikoh] est tout ceque lâon peut voir de plus délicat estimé ceque lâon en a refusé et pas plus Ecus 10000.
Le 10ème volume folio contient 40 feuilles peintes en miniature, représentant differens objets et costumes avec des exemplaires de belle écriture au revers estimé Ecus 4000.
Le 11ème vol. folio contient de même 40 miniatures sur divers objets avec des exemplaires de belle écriture sur le revers estimé Ecus 700.
Le 12ème volume folio contient 40 belles miniatures représentant des portraits dâhommes illustres, princes etcetera avec des exemplaires de belle écriture sur le revers [British Museum, London, 1920,0917,0.133â153], le tout bien soigné estimé Ecus 800.
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Le 13ème volume contient 18 miniatures folio representent partie du Raagmala ou sistème de la musique indienne représenté simboliquement estimé Ecus 100.
Les 14ème [University of Manchester, John Rylands Library, Indian Drawings 12] et 15ème volumes folios contiennent chacun 40 miniatures représentants différens objets, portraits et costumes, avec des exemplaires de belle écriture au revers, estimés les deux, Ecus 800.
Le 16ème vol, folio (petit) représente 36 miniatures de la plus grande delicatesse, le Raagmala complet, ou sistême simbolique de la musique indienne [Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, I 5062]. Le morceau est unique, dans la plus grande préservation et magnifiquement orné estimé Ecus 1500.
Le 17ème vol. folio, représente en 21 feuilles les portraits en miniature des empereurs de la cour de Tamerlan qui ont régné dans lâInde jusquâa ce jour, avec les portraits des 2 conquérans, Nadil Shah [Nadir Shah], mieux connu en Europe sous le nom de Thamas Couli khan, et celui de Ahmed Shah Abdales [Ahmad Shah Abdali] cet afghan fondateur du nouvel Empire qui subsiste maintenant entre la Perse et LâInde et le portrait du prince royal défunt [Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, I 5063] estimé Ecus 630.
Les volumes 18 et 19 petit folio contiennent une collection des plus beaux et plus recherchés exemplaires dâécritures persannes et arabes par les plus grands maitres et rassemblés avec le plus grand soin estimés Ecus 350.
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Les volumes 20, 21 et 22 in/4° long, contiennentâ¯: une collection de portraits en pied dâaprès nature de soldats indiens, de scapoys [sepoys] et officiers, de domestiques et servantes, artisans dans leurs atteliers, faquirs de différentes espèces, marchands, laboureurs et autres gens du commun, aussi des palanquins, des chars et carosses indiens, des étandarts etcetera. Le tout soigneusement fait et compilé estimé Ecus 900 [Wellcome Library, London, 583133i (vol. 1) and 583226i (vol. 2)].
Le 23ème volume tres grand folio contient un nombre de perpectives aériennes représentant différens jardins et palais indiens remplis de figures analogues, le palais des empereurs a Dehly des jeux et divertissements, les portraits des empereurs, la grande mosquée à Dehly, le fameux mausolée de Taaj Mahal auprès dâAgra, enfin toutes cequi peut contribuer à donner une juste idée des batimens indiens [Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, I 5005], estimé Ecus 1500.
Les volumes 24 et 25 petit folio contiennent environ 60 miniatures, les deux bien soignées représentant la principale partie de la Mithologie des indiens, leurs divinités subalternes, les incarnations de Bishen, et les différentes manières de faire leurs dévotions etcetera [British Library, London Or 4769 and Or 4770]. Estimé Ecus 4200.
Les 13 volumes dâhistoire naturelle folio, contiennent audela de 700 peintures, représentant au naturel et de même grandeur, autant que cela a pu se faire, divers objets soit de botanique soit de zoologie
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dont plusieurs entierement inconnus en Europe le tout superieurement éxécuté en miniature et avec les détails nécessaires, le propriétaire en a refusé 12 Ecus pièce lâune dans lâautre dans lâInde estimé le tout lâun portant [?] lâautre Ecus 8500.
Résumé de lâEstimation
|
Les volumes nos 1 et 2 |
Ecus |
600 |
|
Le 3ème volum. |
Ecus |
5600 |
|
Le 4ème vol. |
Ecus |
200 |
|
Le 5ème vol. |
Ecus |
350 |
|
Le 6ème vol. |
Ecus |
2000 |
|
Les 7 et 8ème vol. |
Ecus |
800 |
|
Le 9ème vol. |
Ecus |
10000 |
|
Le 10 vol. |
Ecus |
1000 |
|
Le 11ème vol. |
Ecus |
700 |
|
Le 12ème vol. |
Ecus |
800 |
|
Le 13ème vol. |
Ecus |
100 |
|
Le 14 et 15 vol. |
Ecus |
800 |
|
Le 16ème vol. |
Ecus |
1500 |
|
Le 17ème vol. |
Ecus |
630 |
|
Le 18 et 19 vol. |
Ecus |
300 |
|
Le 20, 21 et 22 vol. |
Ecus |
900 |
|
Le 23ème vol. |
Ecus |
1500 |
|
Le 24 et 25 vol. |
Ecus |
1200 |
|
Les 13 volumes dâhistoire naturelle |
Ecus |
8500 |
|
Ecus |
37,480 ou 74960 [?] de Suisse |
On ne sepassera [séparera] en aucune façon cette collection et elle sera vendue en totalité ou point du tout, on en fournira un catalogue plus détaillé sâil est nécessaire.
On demande de plus que les 2 volumes sur la
page 7
mithologie puissent rester encore quelques tems entre les mains du propriétaire, jusques à la confection de son ouvrage sur la Mythologie indienne, et lâon demande aceque le payement se fasse en Suisse ou en Angleterre.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Nina Macaraig and Sophie Triller for their thoughtful comments and revisions, to Will Kwiatkowski for his generous help in identifying calligraphic pieces and their writers, and to Jake Benson for drawing my attention to the three Polier albums in the Rylands Library in Manchester and sharing his expertise. My thanks also go to the two anonymous peer-reviewers for their careful reading and valuable suggestions.
This essay was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)âproject no. 416816602.
Polier was born into a family of aristocrats as the son of Henri Ãtienne Polier (1700â1781), âseigneur de Bottensâ. On Polierâs lineage, see Béatrice Veyrassat, De Lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde: Un Vaudois à la marge du colonialisme anglais, Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier (1741â1795) (Neuchâtel: Editions Livreo-Alphil, 2022), pp. 29â30.
Polierâs âtwo facesâ as Mughal nobleman and member of the European elite (Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting on the Eastern Frontiers of the British Empire, 1750â1850 [London: Harper Perennial, 2005], pp. 70â71) were already attested in the account of Compte de Modave, who met Polier during his travels through India between 1773 and 1776; see Jean Deloche (ed.), Voyage en Inde du Comte de Modave, 1773â1776 (Nouveaux mémoires sur lâétat actuel du Bengale et de lâIndoustan) (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1971), pp. 441â445.
A few months after Polierâs eldest Indian-born son Antony (b. 1772?) had committed suicide in London in December 1789, Polier succeeded in legalising his other children as his heirs in Switzerland; see Pierre Morren, La vie lausannoise au XVIIIe siècle: Dâaprès Jean Henri Polier de Vernand, Lieutenant Baillival (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1970), pp. 286â287, and Veyrassat, âDe Lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâIndeâ, p. 185 and note 347. For Polierâs Indian family, see ibid., pp. 109â112, 185â187, and 215â216.
On these European collectors, see, e.g., Lucian Harris, âThe Exploration of Nawabi Culture by European Collectors in 18th-Century Lucknowâ, in Lucknow Then and Now, Marg Publications, vol. 55/1, ed. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones (Mumbai: Marg, 2003), pp. 104â117.
Cf. Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, p. 64; see also Lucian Guthrie Harris, âBritish Collecting of Indian Art and Artefacts in the 18th and Early 19th Centuriesâ, (PhD diss., Sussex University, 2002), pp. 86â99 und 104; Harris, âThe Exploration of Nawabi Cultureâ, p. 116.
On the Europeansâ âréseaux de sociabilitéâ in India, see Claire Brizon, Collections coloniales: à lâorigine des fonds anciens non-européens dans les musées suisses (Zurich and Geneva: Editions Seismo, 2023), esp. pp. 94â97. Brizon considers the collecting of albums as a diplomatic tool within the long-established relations of the Awadhi nawabs with the East India Company (p. 95). However, the exchange of albums and paintings within those networks became relevant only after Asaf al-Dawla (r. 1775â1797) had acquired Shah Ê¿Alamâs albums and manuscripts following the Sack of Delhi in 1788 by the Rohilla commander Ghulam Qadir Khan (d. 1789), the year Polier left India. For gifts from the nawabs of Awadh to the British in the late 1780s and 1790s, see Emily Hannam, Eastern Encounters: Four Centuries of Paintings and Manuscripts from the Indian Subcontinent (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2018), pp. 27â28. For the merchant, mercenary and linguist Sir Gore Ouseley (1770â1844), whose collection greatly profited from the British-Awadhi relations in Lucknow from 1795 until 1804, see Harris, âBritish Collecting of Indian Artâ, pp. 124â127.
This assumption has recently gained further support by Béatrice Veyrassatâs discovery of the Inventaire estimatif de tous les biens [â¦] délaissés par led[it] feu Polier of 5 March 1795 (Archives départementales de Vaucluse, 3 E 11/259, esp. pp. 33â54; see Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 136â138). The inventory after death includes ninety-one in-folio manuscrits orientaux (p. 53) and several other in-folio volumes or folders, covered en peau de lâinde rougeatre or etoffe de lâinde, containing a total of 510 pieces (p. 54), which seem to relate to Polierâs albums. By contrast, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, LâInde sous les yeux de lâEurope: Mots, peuples, empires, 1500â1800 (Paris: Alma éditeur, 2018), p. 65, argues that, like Richard Johnson, Polier indeed pursued commercial interests in collecting Indian art objects, manuscripts, and paintings, at least in the 1780s. He believes that Polier himself sold his album collection to the English novelist William Beckford (1760â1844) (p. 328). However, Veyrassat (p. 138) assumes that Beckford acquired Polierâs albums posthumously in 1802, from the guardian of Polierâs underage children.
Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 119â140, esp. p. 125.
See ibid., pp. 102â105.
Polierâs oscillating identity is also reflected in his parallel application of Indo-Islamic, Hindustani, and European architectural styles; see Banmali Tandan, The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh: Its Evolution in an Aesthetic and Social Context (Cambridge: Zophorus, 2008), pp. 102â131, esp. p. 111.
See Sanjay Subrahmanyam, âThe Career of Colonel Polier and Late Eighteenth-Century Orientalismâ, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 10/1 (2000), pp. 43â60, eps. pp. 55â59.
Beckford presumably acquired many of Polierâs albums in Lausanne in 1802 (see Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, p. 138; see also note 7 above). After Beckfordâs death, several of those albums came into the possession of Alexander Marquis of Douglas and Clydesdale (1767â1852), the tenth Duke of Hamilton, the husband of Beckfordâs daughter Susan Euphemia (1786â1858).
As quoted by William Hauptman, âBeckford, Brandoin, and the âRajahâ: Aspects of an Eighteenth-Century Collectionâ, Apollo 143/411 (1996), pp. 30â39, appendix, p. 35; for an English translation of the relevant passage, see Friederike Weis, âA Crouching Woman at her Toilette: Venus or Radha? Cross-Cultural Connoisseurship of an Indian Album Motifâ, in Networks and Practices of Connoisseurship in the Global 18th Century, ed. Kristel Smentek, Valérie Kobi, and Chonja Lee (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), pp. 69â86, here pp. 71â72.
âNotice dâune collection de 38 volumes de peintures indiennes, en miniature et guache, dont 25 volumes représentent différens objets, scavoir [savoir], portraits dâhommes et de femmes, de princes et autres personnes illustres, des chasses, des animaux-éléphants, costumes orientaux, emblèmes [,] mithologie, écriture etcetera et 13 grands volumes infolio contenant audela de 100 feuilles qui représentent différens objets dâhistoire naturelle, tant en fleurs et plantes, que oiseaux et quelques reptiles etcetera scavoir [savoir]. [â¦]â (Ye 1 rés., Estampes, Archives, boîte 1723â1847, seven unbound handwritten pages; without folio numbers, titled âNoticeâ, here p. 1); for a complete transcription of the document, see the appendix below.
There is good reason to believe that several of Polierâs thirteen volumes on natural history are still extant somewhere, since they probably were among the volumes sold at the partial sale of William Beckfordâs collection in May 1817, according to an entry in Beckfordâs journal for 2 April 1817, saying: âWe are selling the whole of Polierâs Natural History, valued in the list sent by Scholl at 8,000 and some hundred scudi.â As quoted in Lucian Harris, âArchibald Swinton: A New Source for Albums of Indian Miniatures in William Beckfordâs Collectionâ, The Burlington Magazine 143/1179 (June 2001), pp. 360â366, here p. 362, note 33. Perhaps the âlist sent by Schollâ is identical with the âNoticeâ perserved in Paris, in which the thirteen volumes of natural history are estimated at 8,500 Ecus (see app., pp. 5â6).
See app., âNoticeâ, p. 1. The 1795 inventory compiled after Polierâs death also mentions several loose folios ârepresentant differentes pieces de lâhistoire naturelleâ and an âinfolio atlas couvert en papier indien avec le dos en maroquin rouge contenant trente sept pieces, representant des oiseaux, animaux, reptiles et plantes qui se trouvent dans lâinde, toutes enluminées de la plus grande beauté,â as quoted in Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 137â138.
âOn demande de plus que les 2 volumes sur la mithologie puissent rester encore quelques tems entre les mains du propriétaire, jusques à la confection de son ouvrage sur la Mythologie indienne, [â¦.]â as quoted in Roselyne Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes: Collection du départment des Estampes et de la Photographie de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, vol. 1 (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2010), p. 25 and note 47 (for this passage, see also app. âNoticeâ, pp. 6â7).
See notes 7 and 16 above.
Antoine Louis Polier and Marie-Elisabeth de Polier, Mythologie des Indous: travaillée par Mdme la Chnsse de Polier sur des Manuscrits authentiques apportés de lâInde par feu Mr. le Colonel de Polier, 2 vols (Paris: F. Schoell, 1809).
Of Antoine-Louis-Henri Polierâs collection, 215 manuscripts were acquired in India by the British merchant Edward Ephraim Pote (1750â1832), see Firuza Melville, âHilali and Mir Ê¿Ali: Sunnis among the ShiÊ¿is, or ShiÊ¿is among the Sunnis between the Shaybanids, Safavids and the Mughalsâ, Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 59/2 (2021), pp. 245â262, here pp. 255â257. Four manuscripts were sold after Polierâs deathâpresumably by his cousin Marie-Elisabeth de Polierâto the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire in Lausanne (Brizon, Collections coloniales, pp. 92â94). Around 1827, another forty-two Sanskrit, Arab, Persian, and Hindustani manuscripts were purchased by the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, presumably via Polierâs youngest son Robert Claude George (b. 1787); see Gérard Colas and Francis Richard, âLe Fonds Polier à la Bibliothèque Nationaleâ, Bulletin de lâÃcole française dâExtrême-Orient 73 (1984), pp. 99â123, esp. pp. 105â109.
In the accompanying letter to the curator Joseph Banks (1743â1820), Polier remarked that the Vedas awaited study by âSir William Jones, the only European, then in India, I believe, who could read and expound any part of them.â Quoted in Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 161â164, esp. p. 164.
William Jones, âOn the Literature of the Hindus, from the Sanscrit, communicated by Goverdhan Caul, with a short Commentaryâ, Asiatick Researches 1 (1788), pp. 340â355, here p. 347.
Sir Elijah Impey, Warren Hastings, and Nathaniel Middleton (1750â1807)âlike Polierâkept their albums during their lifetime (Harris, âBritish Collecting of Indian Art,â pp. 90â92, 100 and note 309, pp. 105â106 and note 334â335). Richard Johnson, however, sold his albums in February 1807, only a few months prior to his death, driven by financial problems (Harris 2002, pp. 112â113). For the special case of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil who cared for his albums by depositing them in the royal Cabinet des Estampes in Paris, see below.
See Natasha Eaton, Mimesis across Empires: Artworks and Networks in India, 1765â1860 (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), pp. 28â34. Some âIndianâ miniatures were already sold in the 1770s and 1780s to specialist dealers in London, so-called âChina Menâ, or to auction houses (ibid., p. 29). However, the term âIndianâ was used for anything âOrientalâ at that time (note 45).
See Harris, âBritish Collecting of Indian Artâ, esp. pp. 77â86. The two so-called Clive Albums (now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IS.48-1956 and IS.133-1964), for example, probably belonged to Nawab ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla (r. 1754â1775), before they entered the possession of Robert Clive (1725â1774), commander-in-chief of the East India Company, in the aftermath of the Battle of Buxar (22 October 1764); ibid., p. 78. See also Axel Langerâs article in this volume. Another case in point is Archibald Swintonâs (1731â1804) collection of paintings, initially made for the nawabi court in Bengal (see Jerry Lostyâs article in this volume) and his eight albums (now in the Museum für Asiatische Kunst [I 5001â5004] and the Museum für Islamische Kunst [I. 4589â4592], Berlin), of which three presumably came from the Indian historian and diplomat Ghulam Husayn Khan (1727/28âc. 1780); see the appendix by Kwiatkowski and Weis.
For the theme of âindolent Indiaâ (lâInde indolente), see, e.g., Subrahmanyam, LâInde sous les yeux de lâEurope, p. 320. For subject-matter related to clichés, see Friederike Weis, âCruel Conquerors and a Solomonic Saint: European Collectorsâ Interests in Indian MuraqqaÊ¿sâ, in Manuscript Albums and Their Cultural Contexts: Collectors, Objects, and Processes, Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 34, ed. Janine Droese and Janina Karolewski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023), pp. 125â165.
See Tandan, The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, pp. 80â101; for the âFrenchificationâ of Gentilâs projects, see ibid., pp. 81, 91â92.
See Francis Richard, âJean-Baptiste Gentil collectionneur de manuscrits persansâ, Dix-huitième Siècle 28 (1996), pp. 91â110, here p. 92; see also Susan Strongeâs article in this volume.
Subrahmanyam, âThe Career of Colonel Polierâ, pp. 49â50.
Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, pp. 32â38; J. Adhémar, âGentil et les images de lâIndeâ, Les Nouvelles de lâEstampe 5 (1967), pp. 171â176; Richard, âJean-Baptiste Gentilâ, pp. 91â92. For a small number of manuscripts and albums that Gentil perhaps kept for himself, see ibid., pp. 97 and 107â108.
Polierâs assimilation to the life-style of a Mughal noble is attested in his memoirs (Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, p. vii). For the Indo-Persian style of his letters and their high-ranking Indian recipients, see Colas und Richard, âLe Fonds Polier,â pp. 110â123. For Polierâs self-fashioning as âPersianate Mughal nobleâ, see also Muzaffar Alam and Seema Alavi (eds.), A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The IÊ¿jÄz-i ArsalÄnÄ« (Persian Letters, 1773â1779) of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 69â71; Subrahmanyam, âThe Career of Colonel Polierâ, and Subrahmanyam, LâInde sous les yeux de lâEurope, pp. 311â329.
Malini Roy has assumed that Gentil entertained his own atelier in Faizabad already during the years 1765 to 1773; see âSome Unexpected Sources for Paintings by Mihr Chand (fl. c. 1759â1786), Son of Ganga Ramâ, South Asian Studies 26/1 (2010), pp. 21â29, here pp. 22 and 27; see also Malini Roy, âOrigins of the Late Mughal Painting Tradition in Awadhâ, in Indiaâs Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, ed. Stephen Markel with Tushara Bindu Gude (Los Angeles: DelMonico Books, 2010), pp. 165â185, here p. 175; and Isabelle Imbert, âPatronage and Productions of Paintings and Albums in 18th-Century Awadhâ, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 12 (2021), pp. 174â201, esp. p. 177.
Little is known about Mihr Chandâs early careerâpresumably at Shah Ê¿Alamâs court in Delhi in the 1750s and 1760sâbefore he found employment with Polier in c. 1773; see Malini Roy, âIdiosyncrasies in the Late Mughal Painting Tradition: The Artist Mihr Chand son of Ganga Ram (fl. 1759â1786)â (PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, 2009), pp. 103â111. For new insights on Mihr Chandâs career, see John Seyllerâs article in this volume.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, département des Estampes et de la photographie, Réserve Ye 62 4° (published in Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, pp. 243â246, as âListe Gentilâ): nos. 1â8, 11, and 14, with todayâs shelfmarks: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, Smith-Lesouëf 246; Estampes, Od 37, Od 50; and Estampes, Réserve Od 43, 44, 49, 51, 52, 53, 60. The list also names three illustrated handwritten books: no. 9 (Receuil de toutes sortes de Dessins sur les Usages et coutumes des Peuples de lâindoustan; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IS.25-1980), no. 12 (Abrégé historique des Rajas de lâIndoustan [Estampes, Réserve Od 36]), and no. 13 (Divinités des Indoustans tirées des Pourans ou livres historiques en Samscretam [Manuscrits, Français 24220]). No. 15 lists a folder of architectural drawings (Estampes, Od 63) and no. 10 another folder of sixteen drawings, now missing.
Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil, Mémoires sur lâindoustan: Ou Empire Mogol (Paris: Petit, 1822), p. 422.
Ibid., pp. 310â312.
Alam and Alavi (eds.), IÊ¿jÄz-i ArsalÄnÄ«, pp. 116â117, fol. 37a.
The loose folios were integrated in Estampes, Od 32, 43, 44, 45a, 51, 53, 60, sometime after their being deposited in the Cabinet royal in 1778.
Roy, âSome Unexpected Sourcesâ, table 1. These are I.â¯4594 fols. 21r, 28r; I. 4595, fol. 2r and I. 4596, fol. 29r; copied after fols. 28r, 2r, 6r, and 24r in Gentilâs album Estampes, Réserve Od 43:
Ibid., p. 22.
Estampes, Réserve Od 60, fol. 25r:
Scholars have interpreted this scene as the story of the two lovers Shahid and Wafa, told by Muhammad Akram in 1685; see Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1981), pp. 122â123 (cat.no. 195; Johnson Album 10, 6), and Sophie Makariou, Un album impérial de peintures mogholes (Paris: Somogy Ãditions dâArt, 2013), fig. 7 (fol. 26 of the Forbes-Montalembert Album in the Louvre, MAO 2261).
Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, cat.no. 141.
For a discussion of the margins in Polierâs albums, see Isabelle Imbertâs article in this volume.
Add Or 4039; see Susan Gole: Maps of Mughal India: Drawn by Colonel Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil, agent for the French Government to the Court of Shuja-ud-daula at Faizabad, in 1770 (London: Kegan Paul, 1988). The atlas is not mentioned in Gentilâs inventory.
For a discussion of these three paintings (I. 4594, fol. 24r and I. 4596, fol. 26r [Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin], and the Gentil album, Estampes, Réserve Od 51, fol. 9r), see Weis, âCruel Conquerorsâ, pp. 141â147, figs. 9â12.
âPortrait de Tamerlan à qui on amene Bayazet après la bataille dâAncire aujourdâhui Angouri. On peut voir dans Bayle [ancient enclosed military terrain] le trait dâhumanité de Tamerlan vis-à -vis les Francais quâil trouva prisonniers dans le camp de Bayazet. Ce morceau de peinture est prétieux rare et curieux. Il meriterait dâétre gravéâ. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Archives; Ye 1 rés., III, 1780â1795, handwritten note bearing the number â9â and related to volume 2927 [todayâs Estampes, Réserve Od 51]).
Translated and edited by Alam and Alavi (eds.), IÊ¿jÄz-i ArsalÄnÄ«.
Ibid., p. 97, fol. 5a.
Ibid., p. 102, fol. 13a.
Ibid., p. 161, fol. 109b.
Ibid., p. 163, fol. 113a.
Ibid., p. 235, fol. 236a, pp. 247â248; fol. 256b, p. 248; fol. 257b, pp. 266â267, fol. 286b, pp. 266â267.
Ibid., fols. 256b (dated 14 Safar 1189) and 257b (dated 15 Safar 1189), pp. 247â248.
Ibid., p. 318, fol. 364a (dated 24 Muharram 1190), p. 318.
For Gentilâs last two years in India from 1775 to 1777, see Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, p. 33.
Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, p. ix.
Alam and Alavi (eds.), IÊ¿jÄz-i ArsalÄnÄ«, fol. 358a (7 Muharram 1190), p. 314.
The other, on folio 29r, shows the visit of Shir Muhammad to Abuâl Hasan Qutb Shah (r. 1672â1686); see, Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, cat.no. 118.
See Mildred Archer, âTilly Kettle and the Court of Oudh (1772â1773)â, Apollo: The Magazine of the Arts 95/120 (1972), pp. 96â106, esp. pp. 103â104, and figs. 10â12.
Ibid., pp. 99â102. See also Gentil, Mémoires, pp. 310â312.
Ibid., p. 310: âLe second le représentait avec sept de ses enfants [â¦].â
I am grateful to Amina Okada for showing me the original and sending a photograph of the separate note. For a reproduction of the painting, see Archer, âTilly Kettle,â p. 103 and fig. 10, and Roy, âOrigins of the Late Mughal Painting Traditionâ, pp. 174â176, cat.no. 29, Louvre, deposited in the Musée national des Arts asiatiquesâGuimet, Paris, no. 35571
For Polierâs move to Delhi, see Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 84â88.
Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, p. ix.
Alam and Alavi (eds.), IÊ¿jÄz-i ArsalÄnÄ«, pp. 319â320, fol. 365b.
Ibid., fol. 373b (7 Safar 1190 [28 March 1776]), pp. 326â327.
Ibid., fol. 397b (7 Rabiʿ I 1190 [26 April 1776]), p. 348.
Ibid., fol. 408b (22 Rabiʿ I 1190 [11 May 1776]), p. 358.
Ibid., fol. 430a (15 Rabiʿ II 1190 [3 June 1776]), p. 378.
I am grateful to Emily Hannam for sharing a photograph of the inscription on the inner cover of the British Museum album. According to Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London: British Museum, 1881), p. 782, who first remarked the âPersian stamp of Major Polierâ, the album (formerly Add. 23,610) contains twenty-eight folios. Since Rieuâs fol. 27 corresponds to 1920,0917,0.77r (calligraphy signed MÄ«rzÄ Muḥammad á¹¢Äliḥ), and Rieuâs fol. 2 (inscribed JahÄngÄ«r pÄdshÄh) to 1920,0917,0.110v, Rieuâs fol. 1 (calligraphy signed ZarrÄ«n Raqam and portrait of Akbar on its reverse) would correspond to 1920,0917,0.111 (not available online).
Volkmar Enderlein, âZur Geschichte der indischen Sammelalben im Berliner Museum für Islamische Kunstâ, in Indische Albumblätter: Miniaturen und Kalligraphien aus der Zeit der Moghul-Kaiser, ed. Regina Hickmann (Leipzig and Weimar: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1979), pp. 5â9, here p. 6, and Almut von GladiÃ, Albumblätter: Miniaturen aus den Sammlungen indo-islamischer Herrscherhöfe (München: Edition Minerva, 2010), p. 11.
See Colas und Richard, âLe Fonds Polierâ, pp. 107â108, no. I.
Ibid., no. IV. It reads ImtiyÄz al-Dawla IftikhÄr / al-Mulk / KulnÄ«l [Colonel] Antuni PÅ«lÄ«r / BahÄdur ArsalÄn / Jang / fidvÄ«-yi BÄdshÄh GhÄzÄ« / ShÄh Ê¿Älam.
For Polierâs involvement in the siege of Chunargarh, see Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 40â47, esp. p. 43.
See, for instance, British Museum, 1920,0917,0.135v, titled âle Prince Kambuckshâ (see Malini Royâs article in this volume).
A folio in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IM.10-1913, showing a seated lady on a terrace with two maids in attendance:
According to Tandan, The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, p. 123, n. 136, Mihr Chand moved back and forth between Delhi and Lucknow between December 1778 and November 1779.
In October 1882, the Prussian state purchased twenty Indian âHamilton-Beckfordâ albums, including ten Polier muraqqaÊ¿s, as well as a RÄgamÄlÄ-setâpresumably also made for Polierâas part of the 692 manuscripts purchased from the twelfth Duke of Hamilton. See Enderlein, âZur Geschichte der indischen Sammelalbenâ, here pp. 7â8.
I am grateful to Will Kwiatkowski for suggesting this translation.
One painting, removed from that album at an undetermined moment, has been kept since 1932 in the Département des Arts de lâIslam in the Louvre (K 3431), showing a drawing inspired by a painting of St Magdalene on the recto and two butterflies on the verso (
For I. 4601, see also Figures 4.18 and 4.19 in Emily Hannamâs article in this volume.
The other signed painting is a portrait of Asaf al-Dawla (Indian Drawings 13, fol. 3v); see the link in note 82.
The calligraphic pieces in I. 4598, fols 4v, 21v, 22v, 28v, 30v, 33v, and Indian Drawings 13, fol. 2r are signed by ʿAta Khan.
See Will Kwiatkowskiâs article in this volume.
See Claus-Peter Haaseâs article in this volume.
For Mihr Chand, see also Seyllerâs article in the present volume. The Berlin albums contain a total of twenty-two works signed Ê¿amal-i Mihr Chand pisar-i GangÄ RÄm (âwork of Mihr Chand, son of Ganga Ramâ), to which can be added another five paintings ascribed in the same way (Indian Drawings 13, fols. 3v and 4v [John Rylands Library, Manchester], National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, S1986.416, and two in the Polier album [Phillipps MS. 6730] sold in London by Sotheby & Co, Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Indian and Persian Miniatures, from the Celebrated Collection Formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792â1872), 27th November 1974 [New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1974], lots 723 and 757). See Tables 7.1 and 7.2.
For a discussion of these two paintings on fols. 3r and 24r, see Weis, âCruel Conquerorsâ, pp. 141â144 and 153â154, figs. 11, 12, 19, 20.
See Kwiatkowskiâs article in this volume.
For Polierâs rehabilitation, see Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 89â90 and 211.
Sotheby & Co, Catalogue of Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 12th December 1966 (London: Sotheby & Co, 1966), lots 1â34: âThe following thirty-three lots consist of leaves from an album assembled at Lucknow c. 1785. The attractive presentation of these leaves resembles material collected by Antoine Polier, [â¦].â Judging from the reproduction of lot 12 (âA portrait of a Persian standing amidst flowers holding two pearsâ), which bears a French subtitle in Polierâs handwriting (26. Seigneur Georgien), one can indeed attribute the album to Polier.
Sotheby & Co, Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Indian and Persian Miniatures, from the Celebrated Collection Formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, lots 723â769 (Phillipps MS. 6730). The portrait of Polier watching a nautch (lot 723) today is in the Aga Khan Collection (reproduced in Roy, âOrigins of the Late Mughal Painting Traditionâ, fig. 26).
chihil varaq-i taá¹£vÄ«rÄt maÊ¿ahu /qiá¹Ê¿ahÄ-yi naskh-i taÊ¿lÄ«q u shikasta wa-ghayruhu ba-khaá¹á¹-i Å«stÄdÄn.
For the role of Prince Javan Bakht in British colonial politics, see Mary Webster, Johan Zoffany: 1733â1810 (New Haven and London, 2011), pp. 483â484. For the oil painting by Zofffany, see ibid., fig. 364. For the copy of the portrait in I 5063, see Friederike Weis, âVon zwei Seiten betrachtbar: Indische Alben für Antoine Louis Henri Polierâ, in Ordnen â Vergleichen â Erzählen: Materialität, kennerschaftliche Praxis und Wissensvermittlung in Klebebänden des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Elisabeth Oy-Marra and Annkatrin Kaul-Trivolis (Merzhausen: ad picturam, 2024), pp. 125â153.
Reproduced as Figure 1 of Royâs article in this volume.
For IÊ¿jaz Raqam Khan, of which one calligraphic piece in I. 4598, fol. 10v, is dated 1188 (1774/75), as well as his connection to Polier and Ê¿Ata Khan, see Kwiatkowskiâs article in this volume.
Interestingly, an anonymous employee of the Museum für Völkerkunde (to which the twenty Hamilton-Beckford albums were transferred in 1891) inserted a handwritten list into this album and added to its former inventory number IC 24346 (later changed into I 5062) by giving its original French title as âVolume seizième, Musiqueânommé Raajmala.â This clearly repeats Polierâs original entry, which is now lost. For a discussion of the whole volume, see Ernst and Rose Leonore Waldschmidt, Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, Part II: RÄgamÄlÄ-Pictures from Northern India and the Deccan (Berlin: Veröffentlichungen des Museum für Indische Kunst, 1975), no. 30, pp. 540â541.
These two volumes await further study. See Roy, âIdiosyncrasies in the Late Mughal Paintingâ, appendix IV, and
My thanks go to Malini Roy, Jennifer Howes, and William Schupbach for bringing these two albums to my attention. Wellcome Library, London: Volume 1 (
In 1817, William Beckford sold a portion of his library at Sotheby, A Catalogue of a Portion of the Library of William Beckford, Esq. of Fonthill [â¦] From the Collections of Van Braam, Bradshaw and Polier, 6â8 May 1817 (London: Sotheby). Lot 321 was described as follows: âThree Volumes containing Portraits of Indian Soldiers, Sepoys, Servants, Mechanics in their Workshops, Faqirs of Varous Sects, Costumes of the Lower Orders, Palanquins, Cars, Chariots, Flags, &c.â (quoted in Harris, âArchibald Swinton: A New Source for Albumsâ, p. 363, note 35). Hence, following the erased numbers 2 and 3, Wellcome Library âVolume 1â would correspond to Volume Twenty-One of the âNoticeâ [â3â added before â21â to form the lot number â321â]; Wellcome Library âVolume 2â to Volume Twenty-Two of the âNoticeâ [â3â added, the second â2â erased and replaced by â1â to form the lot number â321â]. The original Volume Twenty (the third volume mentioned in lot 321) appears to be missing.
See also Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, chapter VIII, pp. 141â160.
See note 14 above.
For Hastingsâ promotion of early British Indologists, such as Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751â1830), Charles Wilkins (1749â1836), and William Jones, see Peter James Marshall (ed.), The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1970), pp. 8â17.
See also Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 141â161 (âJe suis presque hindou â¦â).
Susan Stronge and Behnaz Atighi-Moghaddam, âAn Unrecorded Polier MuraqqaÊ¿ (c. 1785): New Insights into British-Hindustani Cultural Interactionâ, in Adle NÄmeh: Studies in Memory of Chahriyar Adle, ed. Alireza Anisi (Tehran: Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, 2018), pp. 195â228, p. 203 n. 37.
This refers to the sum of 2.7 million rupees that Asaf al-Dawla allegedly owed Polier; see Subrahmanyam, LâInde sous les yeux de lâEurope, p. 318; see also Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, p. 181.
Hastings had commissioned Polier to design this neo-classical monument in June 1784; see Tandan, The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, p. 129. It was erected in Bhagalpur (Bengal) in the late 1780s as a memorial for Augustus Clevland, an administrator of the Bengal Civil Service who had been killed by Tilka Majhi, an Adivasi Indian freedom fighter, in January 1784.
British Library, Add MS 29170, fol. 129râ129v, written at âLacknowâ, 15 July 1786.
Three muraqqaÊ¿s from Warren Hastingsâ collection were bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps at the auction of Daylesford House by Farebrother, Clark & Lye in 1853. They were auctioned off in single pages by Sothebyâs, London, 26 November 1968, lots 367â407; Sothebyâs, London, 27 November 1974, lots 790â813, and Sothebyâs London, 11 October 1982, lots 30â37; see Harris, âBritish Collecting of Indian Artâ, pp. 91â95. Another album presumably also from Hastingsâ collection is now preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, F1907.276.1â17 (
For a summary of Polierâs relationship with Jones and Hastings, see Stronge and Atighi-Moghaddam, âAn Unrecorded Polier MuraqqaÊ¿â, pp. 200â203. For Jonesâ career as Orientalist, see Michael J. Franklin (ed.), Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995), introduction, pp. xvâxxx.
Reproduced as Figure 11.2 of Bensonâs article in this volume.
Kwiatkowski informed me that the Christian patron is now believed to have been possibly a figure connected to the Georgian Bagratid dynasty, which is mentioned in the ode (see Anna Livia Beelaert, âḴÄqÄnÄ« Å ervÄnÄ«,â Encyclopedia Iranica, online version
Though Khaqani mentions his intention to found a school (dabÄ«ristÄn) in Byzantium (RÅ«m) in his ode (Minorsky, âKhÄqÄnÄ« and Andronicos Comnenosâ, p. 569), it seems highly likely that in this ode it is more than a poetic trope and refers to Jonesâ founding of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784.
Misspelled here LÅ«fÄ.
Misspelled here jÄs̱ilÄ«ghÄn.
Identified by Minorsky as the Christian mathematician Qusta b. Luqa (ibid, p. 575).
According to Minorsky, in refering to MalkÄ, Khaqani was probably incorrectly invoking a supposed founder of the Melkite Church, the name of which in fact derives from the word for âroyalâ (ibid, p. 573).
Misspelled here Baá¹laymÅ«s.
Misspelled here QablÄqÅ«s. According to Minorsky âFaylaqÅ«s is the well-known ancient misreading of Philipposâ and suggests that he is to be identified here as âM. Iulius Philippus (âthe Arabâ), whom Christian tradition readily considered as the first Christian emperor (r. 244â249), earlier than Constantineâ (ibid, p. 574). Minorsky does not mention or was unaware that in the Persian epic tradition, including Firdawsiâs ShÄhnÄma, Nizamiâs Khamsa, and Tarsusiâs DÄrÄbnÄma, Faylaqus is Phillip of Macedon, the grandfather of Iskandar or Alexander the Great (see e.g. B.W. Robinson, The Persian Book of Kings: An Epitome of the Shahnama of Firdawsi [London: Routledge Curzon, 2002], p. 79; Norah Titley, Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts: a Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings from Persia, India and Turkey in the British Library and the British Museum [London: British Museum, 1977], pp. 11, 136).
Minorsky identifies the KhamsÄ«n in Khaqaniâs ode as either Pentecost, which is fifty days after Easter, or the fifty days that include Lent and the Easter week (Minorsky, âKhÄqÄnÄ« and Andronicos Comnenosâ, pp. 572, 576). A Lent fast of fifty days covering this period is indeed observed by the Syrian Church. Following BÄ«rÅ«nÄ«, Minorksy identifies ʿĪd al-Haykal as the Feast of the Temple on the Sunday after Easter (ibid, p. 576). It should be noted that though Khaqani lists the KhamsÄ«n and the ʿĪd al-Haykal festivals along with the fasting of the Virgins (á¹£awm al-Ê¿adhÄrÄ) in a series of oaths, he does not establish any relationship between these festivals in the manner of the present ode. It is possible that the author of the present ode, who was almost certainly not aware of the significance of the festivals mentioned by Khaqani, may nonetheless have identified the KhamsÄ«n as Lent, since this was likely to have been the only fast observed in any form among the British in India. By the same token, he may have (mis)identified ʿĪd al-Haykal as Easter. It seems unlikely that he had any direct knowledge of Syrian Christian rites through the Orthodox Syrian Church in Kerala who also observe the fifty-day Lent fast.
Misspelled here âBajÄ«rÄ.â According to Minorsky, âBaḥīrÄ (in Aramaic âelectedâ), or Sergius, was the Christian monk who foretold the prophetic mission of the child Muhammad when the latter visited Syriaâ (ibid, p. 576).
Qaṣīda
alÄ ay á¹£Äḥib-i mÄ Sir WilÄ«m JÅ«ns * qavÄ« az Ê¿adl-i tu aḥkÄm-i ʿĪsÄ
sazad gar ÄsimÄn gardad mufakhkhar * ba-dawrÄn-i chu tu jastÄ«s-i dÄnÄ
dabÄ«ristÄn-i dÄnish tÄ gushÄdÄ« * girift Äʾīn-i tÄza dÄ«n muá¹arrÄ
za tu usquf bipursad mushkil-i khwÄ«sh * buvad á¹ifl-i dabistÄn-i tu LÅ«fÄ [LÅ«qÄ]
panÄhat sajd[a]gÄh-i jÄs̱ilÄ«ghÄn [jÄs̱ilÄ«qÄn] * darat baqrÄá¹iyÄn rÄ jÄ u maljÄ
agar dÄ«dÄ« turÄ Qusá¹Äy pÄ«shash * napursadÄ« za YaÊ¿qÅ«b u za MalkÄ
turÄ mÄ«khwÄnd Baá¹laymÅ«s-i [Baá¹lamyÅ«s-i] s̱ÄnÄ« * musallam bar tu QablÄqÅ«s-i [FaylÄqÅ«s-i] vÄlÄ
turÄ gar DÄ«sqÅ«rÄ«dÅ«s dÄ«dÄ« * bikhwÄndÄ« az khaá¹á¹at chandÄ«n muÊ¿ammÄ
buvad tÄ á¹£awm-i KhamsÄ«n ʿĪd al-Haykal * ravÄj-i tÄbiÊ¿Än-i dÄ«n-i ʿĪsÄ
ba-ghÄyat bÄd Ê¿umr u Ê¿aysh khurram * ba-YūḥannÄ u shammÄs [u] BajÄ«rÄ [BaḥīrÄ]
vafÄ az á¹abÊ¿-i Ê¿ÄlÄ« chun guhar rÄ«kht * za nawk-i kilk Ä«n abyÄt-i gharrÄ
dar sana yak-hazÄr u du á¹£ad HijrÄ«
faqÄ«r Muḥammad Ê¿AlÄ« taḥrÄ«r yÄft
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سزد گر آس٠ا٠گردد Ù Ùخر بدÙرا٠Ú٠ت٠جستÛس داÙا â¬ââ®
دبÛرستا٠داÙØ´ تا Ú¯Ø´Ø§Ø¯Û Ú¯Ø±Ùت آئÛ٠تاز٠دÛ٠٠طرÙا â¬ââ®
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ترا گر دÛسÙÙرÛدÙس دÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø®ÙاÙØ¯Û Ø§Ø² خطت ÚÙدÛ٠٠ع٠Ùا â¬ââ®
بÙد تا صÙ٠خ٠سÛ٠عÛد اÙÙÛک٠رÙاج تابعا٠دÛ٠عÛØ³Û â¬ââ®
بغاÛت باد ع٠ر ٠عÛØ´ خر٠بÛÙØÙÙÙا Ù Ø´Ù ÙÙاس [Ù ]بجÛرا [بØÛرا ]â¬ââ®
ÙÙا از طبع عاÙÛ ÚÙÙ Ú¯Ùر رÛخت ز ÙÙÚ© Ú©ÙÚ© اÛ٠ابÛات غرا â¬ââ®
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To the best of my knowledge, only three other Indian albums of the early-to-mid-eighteenth century bound in concertina format are known so far: One is the Forbes-Montalembert Album preserved in the Louvre, which was probably compiled for Emperor Ahmad Shah (r. 1748â1754); see Makariou, Un album impérial; another very similar album (also containing only paintings) is kept in the Harvard Art Museums, 1960.54 (Thanks go to Charlotte Maury for bringing it to my attention),
These two albums could be those mentioned in Sothebyâs sale catalogue of a portion of Beckfordâs collection from May 1817 as lot 320: âTwo Volumes, containing most beautiful and rich specimens of Arabian and Persian Calligraphy, by the best Mastersâ. As quoted in Harris Lucian Harris, âArchibald Swinton: A New Source for Albumsâ, p. 363, note 35. For the 1817 sale catalogue, see note 102 above.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1982.2.70.1-16 and 1983.2.12 (three folios are reproduced in Markel with Gude [eds.], Indiaâs Fabled City, cat.nos. 154, 155, 184); San Diego Museum of Art, 1990.414:
For the inscription, see Joachim K. Bautze (ed.), Interaction of Cultures: Indian and Western Painting 1780â1910: The Ehrenfeld Collection (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1998), cat.no. 63, p. 253.
Huwa / Ä«n muraqqaÊ¿ davÄzdah varaq dar Ê¿ilm-i munÄáºara [manÄáºir] u masÄfat / maÊ¿ahu qiá¹Ê¿Ät-i nastaÊ¿lÄ«q u naskh u taÊ¿lÄ«q u thuluth u / shafÄ«Ê¿Äʾī u khaá¹á¹-i gulzÄr u shikasta h (âHe (i.e., God) / This muraqqaÊ¿ [consists] of twelve leaves on the science of views and distance [i.e., perspective] / along with specimens of nastaÊ¿lÄ«q and naskh and taÊ¿lÄ«q and thuluth and shafÄ«Ê¿Äʾī and gulzÄr writing and shikasta. Completed.â).
According to Britta Traub (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, email communication dated June 2023), the present reverses of the pages are blank: âOur conservation and curatorial team confirmed these pages are a portion of an entire album. [â¦] There were no other markings on the verso of these images.â
See Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, pp. xiâxii. By contrast, Bautze (ed.), Interaction of Cultures, p. 253, has suggested that Lady Coote âreceived the album in London, in or some time after 1789.â
Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, pp. xiâxii.
Bautze (ed.), Interaction of Cultures, p. 254.
See Parul Singhâs article in this volume.
San Diego Museum of Art, 1990.414 (central piece) and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1982.2.70.12 and 1982.2.70.14. For this calligrapher, see also Bensonâs article in this volume.
Topographical views in horizontal format are rare in Mughal albums, although a few are preserved in the Baroda Album that was presumably assembled for ShujaÊ¿ al-Dawla; see Singhâs article in this volume.
1974,0617,0.5.3 (
Lady Coote Album, Fine Arts Museums San Francisco, 1982.2.70.9; Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, I 5005, fol. 11r (
British Library, Add MS 16264, fols. 69râ70v.
For Polierâs complaints about not being promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel because he was not born English, see Polier and Polier, Mythologie des Indous, preface, p. vi.
Quoted in Veyrassat, De lâattirance à lâexpérience de lâInde, pp. 91â94. See also for the reception of the âdebt from the Vezirâ the above quoted letter to Hastings.
For seventeenth-century Mughal imperial albums, see Elaine Wright (ed.), MuraqqaÊ¿: Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library Dublin (Alexandria, Virginia: Art Services International, 2008). For the general structure of these albums, see also Elaine Wright, âAn Introduction to the Albums of Jahangir and Shah Jahanâ, in ibid., pp. 38â53, and Weis, âVon zwei Seiten betrachtbarâ.
Folio 34 (showing a ânight scene: a girl in front of a houseâ according to a preserved list) belongs to the thirty-two folios stolen in 1929/30 by the German art historian Hermann Goetz (1898â1976) from this and several other albums in the âIslamic departmentâ of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin (todayâs Museum für Islamische Kunst); see Enderlein, âZur Geschichte der indischen Sammelalbenâ, p. 8. For the discovery of the theft and the restoration of twenty-one âminiaturesâ in 1930, see also the appendix by Kwiatkowski and Weis in this volume.
Whereas on fol. 3r, for example, the painting is subtitled â3.â in black ink, its verso bears the Persian number 36 (rather than 38) in its upper left corner. The juxtaposition of fols. 5v and 6r (calligraphy 38 and painting 6; see fig. 7.14aâb) remains the same, even if the sequence of the folios was reconstructed according to the calligraphy numbers.
I am grateful to Will Kwiatkowski for suggesting this translation; see also table 7.1.
Exceptions are I 5063 (Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin) and the British Museum album 1920,0917,0.133-153; both albums have paintings on the left and calligraphic specimens on the right pages.
See Weis, âA Crouching Woman at her Toiletteâ, pp. 72â79 and figs. 2â3.
rÅ«y bar khÄk-i Ê¿ajz mÄ«gÅ«yam / har saḥargah ki bÄd mÄ«-Äyad / Ey ki hargiz farÄmusht nakunam / hÄ«chat az banda yÄd mÄ«-Äyad; translation by Wheeler M. Thackston, quoted from Shaykh Mushrifuddin SaÊ¿di, The Gulistan (Rose Garden) of SaÊ¿di (Bethesda: Ibex Publishers, 2008), p. 47.
The relative autonomy of each page in the Polier albums is emphasised by the equally wide margins on either side of the central fields, as conforming to most eighteenth-century muraqqaʿs.
See, for example, Kishwar Rizvi, âBetween the Human and the Divine: The MajÄlis al-ushshÄq and the Materiality of Love in Early Safavid Artâ, in Ut pictura amor: The Reflexive Imagery of Love in Artistic Theory and Practice, 1500â1700, ed. Walter S. Melion, Joanna Woodall, and Michael Zell (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 230â263. See also Anthony Welch, âWorldly and Otherworldly Love in Safavi Paintingâ, in Persian Painting, from the Mongols to the Qajars: Studies in Honour of Basil W. Robinson, ed. Robert Hillenbrand (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), pp. 301â317, fig. 17.
See, for instance, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IM.158â1914:
Milo C. Beach, âThe Gulshan Album: Reading the Marginal Figures,â Artibus Asiae 76/1 (2016), pp. 5â36. See also Milo C. Beach, âThe Gulshan Album: Aspects of its Assemblyâ, Artibus Asiae 80/1 (2020), pp. 39â98, esp. pp. 40â41 and note 9.
Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, MS 1663, page 249, reproduced in ibid., fig. 6 (described on pp. 83â84).
hast az niÊ¿mat du Ê¿Älam sÄ«r / har ki bar khwÄn-i Ê¿ishq mihmÄn-ast / qibla Ê¿ishq-ast nazd-i ahl-i khirad / kaÊ¿aba rÄ«gÄ« az Ä«n biyÄbÄn-ast / ḥashmat az Ê¿ishq jÅ« ki khÄtam-i Ê¿ishq / gar ba-mÅ«rÄ« mÄ«risad SulaymÄn-ast. Translation by the author with the help of Fatemeh Hassanzadeh.
See Sura 27 (an-Naml [The Ant]), esp. 27:18â19.
For a comprehensive study of the Dara Shikoh Album, see J.P. Losty, âDating the Dara Shikoh Album: The Floral Evidenceâ, in The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan: Art, Architecture, Politics, Law and Literature, Marg Publications, vol. 70/2â3, ed. Ebba Koch and Ali Anooshahr (Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, 2019), pp. 247â287.
raÊ¿yat panÄhÄ dilat shud bÄd [bÄvad] / ba saÊ¿yat musalmÄnÄ« ÄbÄd bÄd [bÄvad]. Source: BÅ«stÄn, chapter two (On Beneficence), tale 36, translation by G.M. Wickens (ed.), Morals Pointed and Tales Adorned: The BÅ«stÄn of SaÊ¿dÄ« (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1974), p. 90 (v. 1512â1513). The text continues with another two couplets drawn from the BÅ«stÄn, preamble, Euology of AbÅ« Bakr ibn SaÊ¿d ibn ZangÄ«, translated by ibid., p. 12 (v. 165â166): gham az gardish-i rÅ«zigÄrat mabÄd / va az andÄ«sha bar dil ghubÄr-at mabÄd / ki dar khÄá¹ir-i pÄdishÄhÄn ghamÄ« / parÄ«shÄn kunad khÄá¹ir-i Ê¿ÄlamÄ« / ba surÊ¿at nivishta shud mashaqahu Ê¿IyÄnÄ«âThe reading of the calligrapherâs name has been suggested by Will Kwiatkowski: There is an Ê¿Iyani recorded in Mahdi Bayani, AḥvÄl va Äs̱Är-i KhushnavÄ«sÄn, vol. 2 (Tehran: IntishÄrÄt-i DÄnishgÄh-i TihrÄn, 1346 SH [1967]), p. 543, who contributed a page to the Shah IsmaÊ¿il (II) album in Istanbul, which means he cannot be later than 984 (1576/77).- (âNo sorrow shall you have from fortuneâs turning / From care no dust shall lie upon your heart! / [For one sorrow on the mind of princes / Distracts a whole worldâs mind.] / rapidly written by Ê¿Iyaniâ).
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Estampes, Réserve Ye 62 4°, n:3.C, no. 19 (reproduced as âListe Gentilâ, in Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, p. 243, n: 3. C).
See Christiane Gruber, âThe Rose of the Prophet: Floral Metaphors in Late Ottoman Devotional Artâ, in Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor of Renata Holod, ed. David J. Roxburgh (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 223â249.
Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, cat.no. 2-1. For an earlier Timurid depiction of a duvÄl pÄy in a Persian copy of Qazwiniâs Ê¿AjÄʾib al-makhlÅ«qÄt wa-gharÄʾib al-mawjÅ«dÄt (Wonders of the Creation and Unique [Phenomena] of the Existence) in the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, I. 6943, fol. 86v, see Ernst Kühnel, âDas Qazwini-Fragment der Islamischen Abteilungâ, Jahrbuch der PreuÃischen Kunstsammlungen 64/3â4 (1943), pp. 59â72, pl. 1.
See Hurel, Miniatures et peintures indiennes, p. 244, n: 4. D: (Od 50) and n:5.E: (Od 60).