A folio from the Ardeshir album, Ladies bathing, Provincial Mughal, Lucknow, circa 1780, opaque...

This page originally comes from the same 18th century album as the so-called 'Ardeshir Album' probably assembled during the reign of Muhammad Shah (1719-1748). A.C. Arshedir, a Parsi from Bombay, came from the eminent Ardeshir family who were pioneers in the printing and printing ink industry in India and owned one of the finest tea estates in the country. A.C. Ardeshir put together his magnificent collection in India in the 1920s and 1930s. The album was dispersed at auction at Sotheby's in the early 1970s, The Property of a Gentleman, Sotheby's London, 26 March 1973. Other pages, like ours, were disbound from the album prior to its acquisition by Ardeshir and the folios were trimmed, maybe to be rebound in different volumes or to be sold individually. 

The pages of this album all share the very distinctive trellis border design seen in our folio. In their discussion of the Windsor Padshahnama, Milo Beach and Ebba Koch describe the borders of the Ardeshir album as the closest equivalent to those on that famous manuscript (Beach and Koch, The Book of Emperors, 1996, fig.25, p.128). Two other paintings with a very similar border are in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto: "Shah Jahan Examining the Royal Seal" (Acc. AKM135. Published in Amina Okada, Indian Miniatures of the Mughal Court, New York, 1992, no.217, pp.175 and 183), and “Salim and the capture cheetah” (AKM166. Published Almut von Gladiss, Albumblätter: Miniaturen aus den Sammlungen indo-islamischer Herrscherhöfe, Munich: 2010, p. 20.) This page, like ours, is a lot smaller than the Ardeshir album (today measuring 55.5 × 34 cm), supporting the idea that the original volume included many more folios.

A number of the paintings in that album show signs of having been taken from other albums before being remounted during the reign of Muhammad Shah. The Aga Khan painting was executed by Abu'l Hasan Nadir al-Zaman, Jahangir's favourite artist, to commemorate Shah Jahan's accession to the throne in 1628 and probably to try to draw the new Emperor's attention to his talents. Both of these royal commissions indicate that the borders of this quality were only used for the most important paintings. Others date to the reign of Shah Jahan (r.1628-58).

Further folios from the album have been sold at Christie's 8 April 2008, Lot 261;  26 April 2012, lot 16; 4 October 2012, lot 35; 25 April 2013, Lot 163 and Sotheby's, London, 15 October 2003, lot 36.

The calligraphy to the verso is signed  ‘Abd al-Rashid, and possibly is the hand of Abd al-Rashid Daylami (d.1670), nephew of Mir ‘Imad Qazvini,  who emigrated to India after the latter’s murder and held high office in the court of Shah Jahan, instructing the princes Darashukuh and Zib al-Nisa’. He was appointed Head of the royal library and lived in Akbarabad during the reign of Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707) until his death in 1670. See https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_OA-0-339 and https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG176882. 

With thanks to Dr. Isabelle Imbert for her assistance with the identification and cataloguing of this folio.