An album of 13 Provincial Mughal miniatures, India, Murshidabad, circa 1760-70

The miniatures are as follows:

1. A love-sick lady attended by her maid.

2. Ladies listening to music on a palace terrace.

3. Todi Ragini a lady playing the vina to a deer.

4. An illustration from the Khamseh of Nizami: Shirin mourning over Farhad.

5. A princess watching her departing lover.

6. Shri Raga A prince listening to music.

7. A music party on a zenana terrace overlooking a lake.

8. Ladies playing chaupar at night.

9.Tanka Ragini, a love-sick lady reclining in her room.

10. Hindola Raga, a lady on a swing attended by maids.

11. Madhumadhavi, a lady taking cover from the storm.

12. Baz Bahadar and Rupmati resting whilst hunting.

13. A lady with a pet fawn approached by a duenna.

These Provincial Mughal miniatures are comparable to a series of ragamala illustrations from Murshidabad circa 1760 that bear the collector's seal of Sir Elijah Impey (see Falk and Archer 1981, pp.472, no.368i). This period in Murshidabad painting saw a move away from the cooler palette associated with the patronage of Ali Vardi Khan (1740-56) and was characterised by the use of brighter colours, firmly stated compositions and a fine use of gold to bring out the richness of the pigments (ibid, p.192). Interestingly the composition of the illustration of Shirin mourning over the corpse of Farhad relates closely to a painting by Mir Kalan Khan that McInerney has dated to the artist's early phase of circa 1735-40 (McInerney 2011, pp.607-22).

The later binding was carried out by the renowned bookbinder Katharine Adams who was associated with William Morris and his circle. Some of the most prominent book collectors of the early twentieth century requested her to bind their prized books and manuscripts. The binding of these miniatures was commissioned by the famous collector Charles William Dyson Perrins who amassed one of the largest and most important collections of manuscripts and printed books in the world. In the early 1900s Perrins acquired Indian and Iranian as well as European manuscripts which included "two superb Mughal manuscripts, a Khamseh of Nizami and a Diwan of Anwari, both illustrated for Emperor Akbar by his most esteemed court painters" (Geneva 1985, p.27). When Perrins died in 1958 the Khamseh of Nizami along with the Gorleston Psalter were bequeathed to the British Museum and the rest of the collection was sold in these rooms in 1958, 1959 and 1960.