Complete Description
Pigments et or sur papier, une princesse assise fumant la huqqa, assiste aux festivités dans la partie du palais réservée aux femmes (zenana), les participantes brandissant des feux de Bengale, la scène située entre deux pavillons sous un ciel nocturne, contrecollé sur carton estampé « [Turnbul]ls crayon board » suggérant une date vers 1846 quand ce papier était produit, quelques abrasions des pigments sur la surface.
Dim. : 37,5 x 49,5 cm (peinture) ; 44,2 x 54,4 cm (page)
The festival of Shab-i Barat, or the Night of Forgiveness, is celebrated in the middle of the Islamic month of Sha‘ban. In the Mughal period, the festival was marked by the use of fireworks, known as “Bengal lights,” during major nocturnal festivities. Numerous depictions of this appear from the seventeenth century onwards, but they became particularly popular in Lucknow painting from the mid-eighteenth century. While the opulence of these celebrations is evident, such paintings often situate them within the intimacy of the zenana (“harem”), for the exclusive enjoyment of the prince and the palace women: see paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 30.95.174.21; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, inv. B81D34; Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. 1971.82; and National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, inv. F1907.191.
