Detail A marbled picture of Rustam catching Rakhsh (cat.7) Deccan, Bijapur, circa 1650 Marbled paper and plain buff paper with use of gold, apocryphal inscription at lower left ‘amal-i Mir Kalan 904 Verso with inscription identifying the scene of Rustam capturing Rakhsh

Page: 14⅝ x 8¼ in (37.2 x 21 cm) Provenance: Collection of Hagop Kevorkian, New York, before 1962 Sotheby’s, London, Highly Important Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, The Property of the Kevorkian Foundation, 1 December 1969, lot 111 Published: Weimann, “Techniques of Marbling in Early Indian Paintings”, Fine Print, vol. 9, no. 4, October 1983, p. 166

This striking marbled picture portrays a scene from the Shahnama of Firdausi in which Rustam, the great hero and warrior, searches for a horse worthy of his martial prowess and strong enough to carry his huge frame. After all the herds of Zabolistan have been inspected and failed to produce a strong enough animal, a wild herd gallops past. Rustam spies a fiery wild stallion that no-one has been able to catch, let alone tame, and whose mother protects him like a lioness. As Rustam prepares to throw his lasso an old herdsman calls out to warn him, but Rustam ignores him, roping the colt and fending off the mare at the same time. Rakhsh becomes Rustam’s trusty mount and loyal ally in his battles against evil and Iran’s enemies. This episode was a very popular choice for artists and patrons in manuscripts of the Shahnama from the time of the earliest illustrated copies in the Ilkhanid period. Its continual popularity meant that there were a large number of variations on the compositional theme, all sharing the essential aspect of Rustam lassoing Rakhsh, but with deviations possible in other respects. Here we have many of the most popular elements: a figure of Rustam with legs apart as if running after or being dragged by Rakhsh; the majority of the herd galloping away in a single direction, with one horse (presumably Rakhsh’s mother) turning to look back; one foal suckling a mare; the old herdsman with an arm (sometime both arms) outstretched appealing to and warning Rustam. The vignette here of a lion attacking a deer at the top is a variation of an element that sometimes appears in mountainous backgrounds of the scene, in which a snow leopard attacks a deer, gazelle or mountain goat, presumably as a way of underlining the wilderness setting of the action. The figure of a man with a gold dagger at the top right is not normally found in this scene. The composition here is based predominantly on Persian prototypes, particularly those of Bukhara in the 16th century and Isfahan in the early 17th century. The latter school provides the closest comparison for the rather squat and stocky figure of Rustam (fig.1 below), and a good example of this and general compositional similarities can be seen in an Isfahan Shahnama dated 1604 (India Office Library, London, Johnson Ms.966, f.54b, Robinson 1976, no.013, pp.198-199). A specifically similar feature worth noting is the diagonal trailing garment of Rustam, which here looks almost like a tail-coat and in the Johnson manuscript is a white robe under Rustam’s lion-skin. It is interesting to note that the figure of Rustam in a Bijapur Shahnama page of circa 1610 (Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1985.404.1, see detail fig.2 below) has a closely related figure of Sohrab, albeit lying down horizontally, in the scene of Rustam and the dying Sohrab in which the helmet with tall aigrette and neck-guard, the stocky figure and slanted lower garment, even the faces themselves, are all akin.

1. Rustam in the present work

2. Sohrab in a Bijapur Shahnama (rotated 90º). MMA 1985.404.1

The similarities between the present work and other versions ( mostly Persian, although there were related Mughal examples, see for instance, Sotheby’s 1991, lot 7), is a natural feature of the strong tradition in Indo-Persian painting of re-use of compositional elements over generations, both within the same atelier and in other schools and courts. In this case, like so many others, it is likely that the composition was based predominantly on a pounce or (in the case of marbling) a stencil of another such template. This probability is strengthened by the existence of a very similar version of the present work, also using the technique of marbling and including an almost identical composition in the lower two-thirds of the picture area, except in reverse (National Museum, no.56.97/6, see fig.4 below). Furthermore, a marbled scene of a lion attacking a deer, identical to the vignette in the upper part of the present work, but again in mirror-image, adds further evidence (former Binney Collection, see Binney 1973, cat.129, p.155, see also details below figs.5-6).

The scene of a lion or other large cat attacking an antelope or deer is a commonly depicted element in Indian and Persian painting. However, in the context of the present discussion, it is interesting to note the Mughal use of a very similar compositional element to that used in the present work and the New Delhi example (figs.5-6 below). This occurs in a miniature of an Antelope and Deer Hunt in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Acc.39.66, see Leach 1986, no.19, pp.73-76, col.pl.V, see also detail fig.7 below).

3. The present work 4. National Museum, New Delhi, 56.97/6

5. Detail of the present work

6. Marbled drawing, former Binney Collection.

7. Antelope and Deer Hunt (detail), Cleveland Museum of Art, 39.66.

In the present work, a close examination of the facial types of the old herdsman and Rustam show that the eyes are close to the Bijapur type, especially those on other marbled paper drawings (see Zebrowski 1983, figs.102-103; Coomaraswamy 1929, no.106, pl.LXV), whereas in the Delhi version, the eyes are distinctively of Golconda type, with the “pop-eye” mannerism so often found in paintings from that school in the middle decades of the 17th century (see figs.8-9 below).

Although marbling as a technique was known in several parts of Asia, it seems that the painting of humans and animals using marbling was a speciality of the Deccan. The artists produced works in which the main figure was executed in marbling on a plain ground, and also the opposite, in which the main figure was in reserve on a marbled ground. For a long time marbled paintings such as the present example were thought to have been products of Ottoman Turkish artists. An early account of the technique of marbling appears in Lord Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum of 1627: "The Turks....have a pretty art of chamoletting of paper, which is not with us in use. They take divers oyled colours and put them severally (in drops) upon water; and stirre the water lightly, and then wet thin paper with it, and the paper will be waved, and veined, like chamolet or marble". (Zebrowski 1983, p.137)

This account established the idea that marbling was invented in Turkey. However, when F.R. Martin, the early-20th-century scholar and collector, published three marbled drawings in 1912 he stated that the technique of marbling had begun in Tabriz in north-west Iran in the 15th century and had been introduced to Ottoman Turkey from there. Zebrowski attributed many of the surviving examples to the Deccan (Zebrowski 1983, pp.135-138), while Weimann published research describing a more widespread use of marbling in India (see Weimann 1983, pp.134-7, 162-4), and Jake Benson is currently developing these ideas further. An early and hitherto unnoticed example of Deccani marbling is found in a manuscript of the Diwan of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda, of circa 1590-1600 (Salar Jang Museum, Hyderabad, see Seyller 2011B, fig.17, p.78), in which several beasts and birds in a scene of Solomon enthroned, including a simurgh, are executed in marbling. This is an important document since it indicates that although Bijapur seems to have produced more marbled works that Golconda in the mid-17th century, it is possible that the technique in the Deccani context began at Golconda.

8a-c. Faces in the present work. 9a-b. Faces in the Delhi work.