Live Auction 18768The Oliver Hoare Collection
PORTRAIT OF ZEB AL-NISA, BEGUM SAMRU (1751-1836)
Lot 10

PORTRAIT OF ZEB AL-NISA, BEGUM SAMRU (1751-1836)

PROBABLY DELHI, NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1820-1830

Closed25 October 2019

Price Realised

GBP 27,500

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PORTRAIT OF ZEB AL-NISA, BEGUM SAMRU (1751-1836)
PROBABLY DELHI, NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1820-1830
Oil on canvas, she sits on a chair covered with red velvet, under a heavy red curtain, she wears a white Kashmir shawl and a white dress over blue trousers, rows of pearls around the neck and a turra, she smokes a huqqa, a window opening on a forested landscape to the right, framed
33 x 28 1/8in. (84 x 71.5cm.)

Anonymous sale; Christie’s, South Kensington, 12 June 2014, lot 174.

Specialist note

For a discussion on Begum Samru and comparable portraits of her, see Linda York Leach, Mughal and other Indian Miniatures in the Chester Beatty Library, volume II, London, 1995, pp.788 – 798. For an extensive description of Begum Samru's extraordinary life from dancing girl to political heavy-weight, see Every Object Tells a Story.