Never-before-seen South Asian miniature paintings from British Royal Collection to go on view in Milton Keynes

An exhibition of South Asian miniature work opening on the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, UK, this autumn (South Asian Miniature Portray and Britain, 1600 to Now, 7 October-26 January 2024) contains 4 gadgets from the Royal Assortment as a consequence of go on public show for the primary time. These embrace an illuminated watercolour from a fifteenth century manuscript, depicting the ninth-century Saint Rabia al-Adawiyya of Basra, the primary feminine saint in Islam.

The present brings collectively brings greater than 180 small-scale works courting from the sixteenth century, which have been prized for his or her portability and technical ability. The miniatures depict scenes from sacred and secular texts, mythological figures and political narratives. The curators Hammad Nasar and Anthony Spira can even discover how the miniatures ended up in UK collections by way of acquisitions made by James I within the early seventeenth century and in addition via workers of the colonial East India Firm.

Different Royal Assortment gadgets seen for the primary time embrace a gold painted web page of Persian verse, written by Nizami, an epic poet in Persian literature and an illustrated copy of the Ishqnama (E-book of Love) a manuscript containing 104 illustrations commissioned in the course of the reign of the final King of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah (reign, 1847-56).

In the meantime, works by up to date artists impressed by the miniature custom additionally characteristic together with The Explosion of the Firm Man (2011) by Shazia Sikander and Imran Qureshi’s A Lover Ready For His Beloved (1999).

The Pakistani artist Ali Kazim is exhibiting a sequence of 16 portraits in response to a Firm College drawing (a method of miniature Indian miniature portray developed by artists who labored for patrons within the East India Firm in the course of the 18th and nineteenth centuries) housed on the Victoria and Albert Museum in London together with a big watercolour drawing (Convention of the Birds, 2020).

Kazim tells The Artwork Newspaper: “I bear in mind my early life on the Nationwide School of Arts Lahore had impressed me in varied methods. I wasn’t conscious in regards to the miniature portray and the printmaking till my first 12 months on the artwork school. I loved studying these disciplines in the course of the basis 12 months.”

Kuwaiti-born Hamra Abbas, one other taking part artist, says: “Miniature portray has influenced my works in a number of methods, from portray to digital works and sculptural installations. Presently, I exploit a mixture of miniature portray and gongbi [a Chinese painting technique] to color small-size photorealistic portraits on silk.”

The exhibition can even characteristic works from the collections of London’s British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.