A nobleman with attendants in a garden.

India, ca.1610-15
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper.

A nobleman is seated on one side of a platform in the centre of a char bagh (Islamic garden divided into four quarters). He is showing a younger man a plant, who, in turn, is holding out a flower to him. Another seated man looks on while two others look on from the top and bottom of the picture on either side. The one to the top is an older man with a grey beard, who leans on a staff, and the other at the bottom holds out a leaf basket filled with small round fruits. The man seated on the rug wears a green robe with a belt with gold medallions at his waist into which can be seen the hilt of a dagger. The other two seated men and the figure on the right all have patkastied at their waists from which hang small square envelope-like wallets.

The garden is shown with a diagonal perspective rising, from a fretwork balustrade at the bottom, across the garden with two intersecting channels of water running under a central terrace, up to a pink brick wall with a wooden doorway at the top of the picture. The water in the channels is bordered by a mass of small flowering plants and within the four garden plots there is a variety of trees, including cypresses, banana palms, flowering and leafy trees interspersed with flowering plants on a green lawn. Birds are shown flying between or perched in the trees at the back.

The painting is framed with an inner border of ruled black and white outlines and gold lines round pink-buff paper strips decorated with a foliated gold scroll pattern. There is an outer blue line on the main border which has an ivory-coloured ground painted with alternate red poppies and pink lilies outlined and highlighted in gold. The margins of the page have strips of buff-coloured paper with an inner white outline. A beige strip of woven textile has been added on the inner margin as a gutter for the binding of the album leaving visible the adjascent abraded remains of the buff-coloured margin.

This miniature painting is part of the Small Clive Album of Indian miniatures which is thought to have been given by Shuja ud-Daula, the Nawab of Avadh, to Lord Clive during his last visit to India in 1765-67. It contains 56 leaves on which are Mughal miniature paintings, drawing and flower studies on both sides. The binding is covered with an Indian brocade silk that may have been cut from lengths brought home by the 2nd Lord Clive, who served as Governor of Madras, 1799 to 1803. The album was sold from Powis Castle at Sotheby's sale, 16 to 18 January 1956.

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