ATTRIBUTED TO THE MUGHAL MASTER MANOHAR, A PORTRAIT... Lot n° 47

ATTRIBUTED TO THE MUGHAL MASTER MANOHAR, A PORTRAIT OF A PRINCE, MOUNTED ON A ROYAL ALBUM PAGE,INDIA, DECCAN, BIJAPUR OR GOLCONDA, CIRCA 1700 21.5cm x 15cm  Imperial Seal & Dated on the reverse  Footnotes:  Manohar was the son of Basawan, one of the most celebrated artists at Akbar's Mughal court. Basawan was held in considerable esteem and probably took charge of the Mughal studio following Daswant's death in 1585. Indeed Abu'l Fazl, Akbar's trusted adviser and biographer, in the A'in-i Akbari (a supplement to the Akbarnama, 1596-98), records Basawan's exceptional gifts as an artist, making particular mention of portraiture. These gifts were clearly inherited by his son Manohar, born in the 1560s, who proved to be an outstanding pupil and contributed to many of the major Mughal albums and manuscripts commissioned from the 1580s over the next four decades. By the 1590s Manohar had moved on from his father's influence developing a mature style of his own. His illustrations to the Rampur Diwan of Hafiz, circa 1585, and the British Library Babur-nama, circa 1591, reflect this and are distinctive from that of Basawan. Manohar also found a patron in Akbar's second son Prince Murad (1570-1599), an ambitious military commander who died of alcoholism before the age of thirty. A portrait attributed to Manohar of two lovers, circa 1597, formerly in the collection of F. R. Martin, depicts a fine study not only of Prince Murad but also of his consort, the daughter of Aziz Koka, whom he married in 1587. It was an easy transition for Manohar to continue working at the Mughal court for Akbar's heir, the emperor Jahangir (reg. 1605-1627) and indeed he was so valued by the emperor that he accompanied him on an expedition to Ajmer, Mandu and Ahmedabad in 1613-1618. It may well have been on this expedition that Manohar painted this particular portrait of this Rajput nobleman. It was also on this expedition that a portrait by Manohar of Jahangir was signed and dated by the emperor with the place of its painting and presented as a gift to the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe. Manohar also contributed three important portraits commissioned by Jahangir, now in the Kevorkian album, now in The Metropolitan Museum in New York, maintaining his reputation as one of the most important portrait painters in the Mughal atelier until his death in the 1620s.