Indian vulture

Unknown

Indian vulture. This careful study of an Indian (or long-billed) vulture is based closely on an earlier Mughal album-painting, by the artist Mansur, dateable c. 1620 (New York: Met 55.121.10.12v). Another version (attributed to the nineteenth century) is also known (Washington, DC: Freer-Sackler F1948.19v). Such repetitions confirm the enduring power of Mansur's work, but also reveal information about the trajectory of the original album-folio, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on gold-flecked album page, an Indian vulture (also called the long-billed vulture) perched on a rock against blank backdrop, probably copied from a seventeenth-century Mughal painting by Mansur, mounted here with Persian verses from Sa`di's Gulistan above and below the painting, unsigned, India, c. 1700-1750.