A Mughal night scene with lady and attendant at a Siva lingam shrine, double-sided leaf from the Fremantle Album, India, first half of the 18th century, calligraphy signed by Ali, opaque pigments on paper, folio 48 x 35.5 cm, painting 16.4 x 10.5 cmProvenance: Private collection UKInscription: The cartouche reads 'Depiction of beauty: the worship of Mahadev'. This leaf comes from the so-called Fremantle Album, thought originally to have been made for Shuja' al-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh around 1770 and brought to the United Kingdom by Admiral Sir Edmund Robert Fremantle in 1891. The paintings in the album are characterized by their gold speckled borders and gold cartouches containing captions above the painting. Many of the paintings, like the present one, begin with the phrase 'tasvir-i husn' or 'depiction of beauty'. The cartouche in reads 'Depiction of beauty: the worship of Mahadev'.The verso consists of verses from a ghazal of Shah Ni'matullah Wali, in praise of himself: "Should you wish to invite Ni'matullah as a guest/ You would have to prepare a spread that would go around the world/ And if you should wish to build a mere palace with his degree of zeal/ You would have to make a building whose four walls would encompass the seven climes", signed below "The poor, sinful slave 'Ali wrote it, may God conceal his faults".It is possible that this is an early work of the famous scribe Mir 'Ali Haravi (d.1544). Though the signature does not contain any of this calligrapher's usual epithets, some of his early work is signed in a similarly simple fashion.At the bottom are further encomiastic verses in Persian. These include a couplet said to have beencomposed by the Timurid Husayn Bayqara (d.1506) in praise of the statesman 'Ali Shir Nava'i.Will Kwiatowski kindly identified the album page and read the calligraphyon the reverse of this folio.A Mughal night scene with lady and attendant at a Siva lingam shrine, double-sided leaf from the Fremantle Album, India, first half of the 18th century, calligraphy signed by Ali, opaque pigments on paper, folio 48 x 35.5 cm, painting 16.4 x 10.5 cmProvenance: Private collection UKInscription: The cartouche reads 'Depiction of beauty: the worship of Mahadev'. This leaf comes from the so-called Fremantle Album, thought originally to have been made for Shuja' al-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh around 1770 and brought to the United Kingdom by Admiral Sir Edmund Robert Fremantle in 1891. The paintings in the album are characterized by their gold speckled borders and gold cartouches containing captions above the painting. Many of the paintings, like the present one, begin with the phrase 'tasvir-i husn' or 'depiction of beauty'. The cartouche in reads 'Depiction of beauty: the worship of Mahadev'.The verso consists of verses from a ghazal of Shah Ni'matullah Wali, in praise of himself: "Should you wish to invite Ni'matullah as a guest/ You would have to prepare a spread that would go around the world/ And if you should wish to build a mere palace with his degree of zeal/ You would have to make a building whose four walls would encompass the seven climes", signed below "The poor, sinful slave 'Ali wrote it, may God conceal his faults".It is possible that this is an early work of the famous scribe Mir 'Ali Haravi (d.1544). Though the signature does not contain any of this calligrapher's usual epithets, some of his early work is signed in a similarly simple fashion.At the bottom are further encomiastic verses in Persian. These include a couplet said to have beencomposed by the Timurid Husayn Bayqara (d.1506) in praise of the statesman 'Ali Shir Nava'i.Will Kwiatowski kindly identified the album page and read the calligraphyon the reverse of this folio.