Page 157 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art March 2016 New York
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VIEW OF THE MOTI MASJID
By Sheikh Latif, Agra, circa 1830
Opaque watercolor on Whatman paper, numbered ‘41’.
Image: 11 x 18 3/8 (28 x 46.6 cm);
Album folio: 19 1/2 x 25 3/4 in. (49.5 x 65.4 cm)
$10,000 - 15,000
In describing the subject of this drawing, Pal writes, For other watercolors from the Home album, with their distinctive
“The purity of forms, the elegant proportions of the cusped 19th-century mounts with ink rules and corner scroll motifs,
arches, and the harmonious arrangement of the domes create an see Pal, (ibid., p. 65, nos. 53-5) and Bautze, Interaction of cultures,
environment decidedly heavenly...a fitting reflection of its function San Francisco, 1998, pp. 218-20, no. 55. Bautze lists the forty-four
as a house of prayer.” (Romance of Taj Mahal, Los Angeles County watercolors with their identifying numbers.
Museum of Art, 1989, p. 83.)
Exhibited
Sir Robert Home, this drawing’s original owner, was a prolific and Romance of the Taj Mahal, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
celebrated artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 1770s. December 1989-March 1990; Toledo Museum of Art, April 1990-June
In 1792 he accompanied British troops in the campaign against 1990; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, August 1990-November 1990;
Tipu Sultan, producing his famed Select Views in Mysore in 1794. and Asia Society, New York, February 1991-March 1991.
Afterwards, he was highly sought to paint portraits, including those
of the Nawabs of Oudh. From 1828 to 1834, he lived at Cawnpore Published
and it was likely during this time he came in contact with this Pal, et al, Romance of the Taj Mahal, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 83, no.
drawing’s artist, Sheikh Latif. 74.
Sheikh Latif, remains one of the few known Agra artists and Provenance
architects of this period. Apart from the album commissioned by Robert Home (1752-1834)
Home, he was known to the traveller Fanny Parkes, who published Thomas Hendley, acquired in 1847
two of his drawings in her 1850 book, Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Private Collection, USA
search of the Picturesque.
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