File:A double-sided page depicting a Persian nobleman wearing an elaborate late Safavid turban, from a dispersed album of Deccani rulers and noblemen, Deccan, Golconda, circa 1680.jpg

English: A double-sided page depicting a Persian nobleman wearing an elaborate late Safavid turban, from a dispersed album of Deccani rulers and noblemen

Deccan, Golconda, circa 1680

Gouache and gold on paper, laid down on an album page with gilt-decorated floral borders, numbered 62 or 68 at top. Painting 197 x 118 mm., 160 x 117 mm.

Another folio from this album, with the same illuminated borders, is in the British Museum (1920,0917,0.69), dated to the early 18th Century. Zebrowski observes that 'it was the custom at Golconda for painters of modest talent to produce albums of Deccani and Mughal notables for sale in the bazaar to European and other foreign travellers' (M. Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London 1983, p. 194). We might also compare in connection with both our painting and the British Museum example, two folios in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M. 81.8.9, and M. 87.20.1), of circa 1690: the first a Mughal-influenced portrait with the same light green background and flowers at the subject's feet; and an oval portrait in the same style and that of the British Museum. (See P. Pal, Indian Painting: a catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection, Los Angeles 1993, vol. I, pp. 348-351, nos. 110 and 111.

The nasta'liq script verso is a demonstration of how to join letters of the alphabet to others, and is not related to the painting.