A folio from the 'Small Clive Album': A holy man teaching a prince at night, India, probably Awadh, Mughal, circa 1760

Shuja' al-Dawla, Nawab of Awadh (r.1754-75),

gifted to Robert Clive, governor of Bengal (1725-74) as part of the 'Small Clive Album', probably circa 1765-67,

thence by descent and dispersed from the album, possibly 1854

Christie's London, 18 December 1968, lot 86

Ex-collection Edmund de Unger, London

Sotheby's London, 17 December 1969, lot 11

The present painting bears a close resemblance to a seventeenth-century painting formerly in the Khosravani-Diba Collection and sold in these rooms, 19 October 2016, lot 13 (Goswamy and Fischer, 1987, p.188, no.92). Its resemblance is such that the present painting is likely to be copy of that painting, with the figure of the musician omitted. This is supported by the existence of two further copies of the same scene, one of which was offered for sale by Maggs Bros. Ltd. in 1973 (Oriental Miniatures & Illumination, March 1973, p.136, no.203) and the other now in the collection of the Indian Museum, Kolkata (inv. no.G.388/S.153), which contain elements, such as the musician, rendered in the Khosravani-Diba painting, but not in the present painting.

The attribution of the painting to circa 1760 is based on the border, which identifies the present folio as one included in the now partially dispersed 'Small Clive Album'. This collection was sold as a 56-folio album from the collection of the Earl of Powis, a descendant of Robert Clive, in these rooms, 16 January 1956, lot 332A, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. nos.IS.48:1/A-1956 to 56/B-1956).

The album is commonly held to have been presented to Robert Clive, governor of Bengal, by Shuja' al-Dawla, nawab of Awadh, following the signing of the Allahabad treaty in 1765. That the album presented to Robert Clive contained more folios than the 56 now present in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is evident from the sale of further, identically mounted album folios from the ancestral collection of Robert Clive, at Christie's London, 18 December 1968, which included the present folio (then lot 86). As with a number of other albums assembled in Awadh during the second half of the eighteenth century, the 'Small Clive Album' contains a mixture of earlier Mughal paintings and contemporary paintings composed or copied to fit the theme of the album. As a copy of a widely-known seventeenth-century painting, it seems likely that the present painting falls under the latter category, and was made for Shuja' al-Dawla.