This elegant painting is attributable to an artist who also worked on an important seventeenth century Mughal album assembled under princely patronage, now known as the Dara Shikoh Album. The patron of the album, Prince Dara Shikoh (1615-59), was the eldest son and heir of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. 

The lady in the present painting, holding a wine cup in her left hand and a bottle in her right, is closely comparable to a stand-alone portrait of a lady of the court in the Dara Shikoh Album, attributed to the artist Bichitr and dated to circa 1630-33 (Add.Or.3129, folio 28; ibid., pp.133-4, fig.83). In an almost identical manner to the present example, she wears an orange peshvaj over a lilac paijama, a patterned gold patka, a plum-coloured odhani over her shoulders with the gold edges visible over her head, and a pair of distinct yellow and purple pointed slippers with orange tassels at the front. Both paintings have large plants in the foreground and a detailed receding Europeanised landscape in the background with rows of trees and rolling hills beyond, all in green grisaille. The landscape in the Dara Shikoh album painting includes a Flemish town with a church and a castle. This distinct landscape is typical of Bichitr’s style. A comparable, more detailed background can also be seen in a portrait of Asaf Khan by Bichitr dated to circa 1631 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IM.26a-1925).

The lady in our painting offers a cupful of wine to a young prince on her left who stands with one foot languidly removed from his slipper. He wears a purple plume in his turban, strings of pearls around his neck, a gold dagger tucked into his cummerbund, and a sword in his left hand. The figure of the prince can be compared with a few examples in the Dara Shikoh Album including a portrait of Dara Shikoh himself holding a jewelled ornament in his right hand and a tray of jewels in his left, attributed to Chitarman and dated c.1631-32 (Add.Or.3129, folio 19v; illus. Losty and Roy 2012, fig.78, p.129); another portrait of Dara Shikoh holding a gold tray with loose pearls and a spinel in his right hand (Add.Or.3129, folio 35v; illus. Falk and Archer 1981, 68 f.35v, p.389); and to a further portrait of an unidentified princely youth holding a flower in his right hand and a sword in his left (Add.Or.3129, folio 37v; illus. Falk and Archer 1981, 68 f.37v, p.389).

The present painting also closesly relates to two portraits in the Nasir-al-Din Shah Album in Tehran, confirming that the artist of this painting is one of the imperial atelier.

The calligraphy on the reverse comprises a few lines of Persian prose unrelated to the subject to the painting which mentions a nobleman called Maqsud ‘Ali Bayg who had been ordered to look for fine horses, returns with a few and requested to look for more.