Maidens at a moonlit party with musicians and attendants
Provincial Mughal, Oudh, circa 1760-80
gouache and gold on paper, laid down on an album page with gold-decorated borders, verso, a calligraphic panel by Abu'l-Baqa' al-Musawi, Persia, dated AH 1098/AD 1686-87 with two couplets of Persian verse in large nasta'liq script written diagonally within cloudbands on a gold ground
painting 198 x 127 mm.; calligraphic panel 219 x 113 mm.; album page 375 x 280 mm.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private collection, London.

The calligraphic page verso consists of two couplets from a ghazal of Sa'ib Tabrizi (d. AH 1086/AD 1676), copied by Abu'l-Baqa' al-Musawi, and dated AH 1098/AD 1686-87.

The scribe Abu'l-Baqa' is recorded as coming from a family of Sayyids from Abarqu, who wrote nasta'liq. He went to India and on his return was given a room in the Taqarrub Khan madrasah and was still working there at the time when Nasr Abadi's tadhkirah was composed circa AH 1100/AD 1688-89.

There is another Abu'l-Baqa' who is recorded as having gone to India and become one of the court calligraphers of Shah Jahan, though on the basis of the date on this piece this does not appear to be this second candidate. See Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. I, Tehran, 1345sh, pp. 22-24; and Muhammad Tahir Nasr Abadi, tadhkirah-ye nasr abadi, ed. M. Naji Nasr Abadi, vol. 1, Teheran, 1378sh, p. 167.