Portraits of Mughal emperors
Reference code
MSS/0697
Title
Portraits of Mughal emperors
Date
after 1719-c. 1753
Level of description
item
Extent and format
ff. vi + 11.
Folio.
Leather binding, brown, gilt corner-pieces (French), red lettering-piece on front cover, ties missing.
Folio.
Leather binding, brown, gilt corner-pieces (French), red lettering-piece on front cover, ties missing.
Scope and content
'Portraits of the Moguls or Indian Emperors. Tamerlane the first, Mahommed Babr to Nasrodin'; after 1719 (death of Nasrodin's predecessor).
Eleven miniatures in gouache and goldleaf, cut from several Mogul manuscripts, mounted on dyed paper sprinkled with gold, and further mounted as an album. Probably assembled in India (inf. John A. Goodall, FSA). English text conc. each Mogul laid down on the facing versos, probably c. 1753.
The portraits, said to have been 'done at Dehli', and an account of each, were exhibited to SA by Henry Johnson, FSA (Minute Book VII, 29 March 1753, p. 55). The text was transcribed into SA Register (MSS/0262 (64); see also MSS/0264/B (68)). A later note, fol. 11, refers to Cook's estimate (in his Voyages and Travels through the Russian Empire, here dated 1736) of the value of plunder from the sack of Delhi, 1739 (cf. the extract from a letter, 5 Apr. 1739, of 'Mr Johnson', counsel to the East India Council, on the same subject in MSS/0264 (13)).
Eleven miniatures in gouache and goldleaf, cut from several Mogul manuscripts, mounted on dyed paper sprinkled with gold, and further mounted as an album. Probably assembled in India (inf. John A. Goodall, FSA). English text conc. each Mogul laid down on the facing versos, probably c. 1753.
The portraits, said to have been 'done at Dehli', and an account of each, were exhibited to SA by Henry Johnson, FSA (Minute Book VII, 29 March 1753, p. 55). The text was transcribed into SA Register (MSS/0262 (64); see also MSS/0264/B (68)). A later note, fol. 11, refers to Cook's estimate (in his Voyages and Travels through the Russian Empire, here dated 1736) of the value of plunder from the sack of Delhi, 1739 (cf. the extract from a letter, 5 Apr. 1739, of 'Mr Johnson', counsel to the East India Council, on the same subject in MSS/0264 (13)).
Previous reference number(s)
SAL/MS/697
Archival history
Letter of Joseph Ames, Sec. SA, 2 Apr. 1753, to Col. Henry Johnson, fol. iv, saying that he had copied into SA Register Book (MSS/0262) 'the Eleven Papers which I now return'. Armorial bookplate of Christopher Beauchamp, fol. i (arms of Beauchamp and Johnson, with motto 'Toujours fidèle'), indicates that the volume descended through Henry Johnson's eldest daughter, Laetitia, who married, 1762, Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, 1st Bt.; Christopher Beauchamp, b. 1771, was the second son of this marriage (see DNB; R. Clutterbuck, Hertfordshire, I (1815), 305; W. Betham, Baronetage, III (1803), 234). Evidence for later provenance:- Signature of T. Secker, flyleaf; torn label, early 20th cent., 'Lot 63-,' front cover; letter of W. Foster, India Office, to Mr Rose, 31 March 1927, suggesting that Mr Stapleton should show the album to SA, fol. v.