Opaque pigments, ink and gold on paper, the two small-sized vertical manuscript illustrations depicting typical Safavid banqueting scenes, the first in a palatial setting, the latter in a lush fully blossomed garden by a stream, each scene livened with musicians and attendants carrying food or drinks, the palatial scene featuring several female characters including the dancer in the centre and the harp musician on the lower right, all wearing colourful headscarves, the counterpart to the prince a female courtly lady of title wearing a typical Safavid female headdress with curved sides, both manuscript illustrations mounted onto later album page cardboard borders with concentric frames decorated with gilt floral and vegetal scrolls and gold-speckled blue edges.
These paintings were once part of a private collection of Islamic & Indian Paintings from Anthony Dexter. Dexter is an English Private Collector of Oriental arts and successful interior designer who has been prolific collector for the last thirty years. His collection celebrates the mesmerising variety of the pictorial arts of India across a variety of regions, centuries, and medias. Dexter said of his collection, “I simply bought what I fancied and remained just a one-man-band with a liking for the unusual”. This passion for the unconventional, whimsical, and unusual ignited his collection and career since the start, when at the age of 18 he began running an antiques and second-hand shop in Leicester, England. Shortly after, he bought his very first Ushak carpet from a Polish dealer for the princely sum of £25.00. For the last 30 years, to say it in his own words, “this world of [Islamic and Indian] art has been an entire lifetime’s trip”. It is with great pleasure that we offer his collection to the next generation of ‘art custodians’.
