English: An illustration from the Akhbar-i-Barmakiyan: Yahya Ibn Khalid al-Barmaki returning the jewel sent to him by Zubayda, the wife of Harun al-Rashid, India, Mughal, circa 1595-1600

Gouache, heightened with gold on paper Painting: 18.3 by 12.6cm. Leaf: 38.5 by 27.2cm.

gouache heightened with gold on paper, 3 lines of nasta'liq script to the lower section and a further line to the upper section, laid down on an album page with gold and coloured ruled borders, 12 lines of nasta'liq script to the reverse

This miniature is one of a series dating from a late sixteenth-century Mughal manuscript titled Akhbar-i Barmakiyan, a work believed to have been written in the tenth and eleventh centuries and translated from Arabic into Persian by the fourteenth-century translator Ziya al-Din Barani. The work concerns the history of the Barmakid dynasty, and chronicles “the generosity and clerical efficacy” of a family that rose to considerable power during the early years of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Sixteen illustrated leaves from this manuscript, including the present one, were sold in these rooms, 1 July 1969, lots 83-98. Two others were in the Warren Hastings Album (subsequently Phillipps MS.14170) sold 26 November, 1968, lots 376 and 377. Two illustrated leaves were sold in our New York rooms 15-16 April 1985, lot 445, and 21-22 March 1990, lot 8, the latter formerly in the collection of Edwin Binney III. Another was sold at Christie's London, 14 October 2003, lot 146. Leaves from this manuscript are found in the collection of the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (formerly in the Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan collection, see Welch and Welch, 1982, no.53, pp.155-7, and Canby 1998, nos.87-88, pp.119-121).