Illumination in the Form of a Vase

Title: Illumination in the Form of a Vase

Date: early 17th century

Geography: Made in India, Deccan, Bijapur. Country of Origin India

Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Dimensions: Frame: 13 3/16 × 9 3/4 × 9/16 in. (33.5 × 24.7 × 1.5 cm)
Image: 10 1/16 × 6 5/8 in. (25.5 × 16.8 cm)

Classification: Codices

Credit Line: Howard Hodgkin Collection, Purchase, Florence and Herbert Irving Acquisitions, Harris Brisbane Dick, and 2020 Benefit Funds; Howard S. and Nancy Marks, Lila Acheson Wallace, and Friends of Islamic Art Gifts; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; and funds from various donors, 2022

Accession Number: 2022.204

Illumination in the Form of a Vase

This decorative fantasy of a flowering vase may have formed the opening or end of a Bijapur album of paintings and calligraphy. The shape of the vase is principally outlined by serrated-edged saz leaves, which are a hallmark of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman art. The Ottoman genre of saz ink drawings, executed with a reed pen and incorporating the outlines of saz leaves in curving and broken forms, must have been known to this illuminator, who succesfully produced many of the same effects.[1] The thickened line in some strokes relates to the calligraphic technique of saz drawings, as does the treatment of the leaves, which weave and interlock in stiff tension. Enriched with color and gold that has been pricked and worked, the surface effect is that of opulence.

Small facial masks in the illuminated opening pages of the manuscript Zakhira-yi Khwarazmshahi (The Treasury of Khwarazm Shah, cat. 96 in this volume), made in Golconda in 1572, as well as in other examples from sixteenth-century Shiraz, are in keeping with the frontally facing mask on the neck of the vase here. Turkmen-style blossoms and other more conventially styled flowers, such as lotuses and peonies, are included. At the base of the vase, a row of rocks with some plants growing out of them pays a deferential nod to realism, from which this fanciful composition is otherwise far removed.

Navina Haidar in [Haidar and Sardar 2015]

Footnotes:

1. Denny, Walter B. "Dating Ottoman Turkish Works in the Saz Style." Muqarnas 1, pp. 103–21.

Inscription: Inscribed above lower border: gul-i hazar gulha(?) (flower of a thousand flowers[?])

On lower left: 32, 30, an illegible date(?)

[ Art market, London; until ca. 1980; to Hodgkins]; Howard Hodgkin, London (1980–d. 2017); Howard Hodgkin Indian Collection Trust, London (2017–2022; sold to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy," April 20–July 26, 2015.

Michell, George, and Marc Zebrowski. "Art and Architecture of the Deccan Sultanates." In The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. no. 135, p. 185.

Topsfield, Andrew, and Milo C. Beach. "Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 15 Sept. 1991–12 Jan. 1992." In Indian Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Howard Hodgkin. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1991. no. 8, pp. 34–35, ill.

Filippi, Gian Giuseppe, ed. "Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, April 30–Aug. 3, 1997." In Indian Miniatures and Paintings from the 16th to the 19th century : The Collection of Howard Hodgkin. Milano, 1997. no. 66, p. 119.

Michell, George, and Mark Zebrowski. The Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates. The New Cambridge History of India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 185, fig. 135.

Topsfield, Andrew. "The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, February 2-–April 22, 2012." In Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012. no. 43, pp. 108–9, ill.

Guy, John, and Navina Haidar. Indian Skies : The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting (Winter 2024). pp. 23–25, ill. fig. 26.

Haidar, Navina, and Marika Sardar. "Opulence and Fantasy." In Sultans of Deccan India 1500–1700. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. no. 57, pp. 136–37, ill.