Nawab Khan 'Alam, Ikhlas Khan, a Mughal general Kishangarh, circa 1740Nawab Khan 'Alam, Ikhlas Khan, a Mughal general Kishangarh, circa 1740gouache and gold on paper, laid down on an album page with gold-sprinkled borders, five lines of nasta'liq and five lines of nagari text on reverse painting 328 x 220 mm.; album page 462 x 302 mm.CHECK INSCRIPTION AGAINST THEIR SUGGESTIONProvenanceSotheby's New York, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, 19th September 1996, lot 173.Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 5th April 2011, lot 261.Private UK collection.For similar large-scale Kishangarh portraits, influenced ultimately by Mughal examples, see T. Falk, S. Digby, Paintings from Mughal India, Colnaghi, London 1979, pp. 68-69, no. 32 (Prince Azim ush-Shan); A. Topsfield and M. C. Beach, Indian Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Howard Hodgkin, New York 1991, no. 38 (a maiden with a tanpura); and R. Crill and K. Jariwala, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, London 2010, no. 37 (another maiden with a musical instrument, also illustrated and discussed in S. Kossak, Indian Court Painting 16th-19th Century, New York 1997, no. 57). For an idealised female portrait, see D. J. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: the Ehrenfeld Collection, New York 1985, no. 72. For a head and shoulders study of Krishna holding a flute, see B. N. Goswamy, J. P. Losty, John Seyller, A Secret Garden: Indian Paintings from the Porret Collection, no. 29.The inscription in nasta'liq on the reverse describes the picture as that of Nawab Khan 'Alam, the eldest son of Nawab Khan Zaman Bahadur Fath Jang, and gives the ranks of both father and son.Khan 'Alam was the title of Ikhlas Khan. He served under 'Alamgir and was raised to the 'Rank of Five Thousand' in 1689 with the title Khan 'Alam. He was raised to the 'Rank of Six Thousand' in 1696. After 'Alamgir's death, he espoused the cause of Azam Shah against Bahadur Shah and died at the Battle of Jajau on 18th June 1707 along with his brother Munawwar Khan (and Azam Shah's son, Bidar Bakht). See Thomas William Beale, An Oriental Biographical Dictionary, revised and enlarged by Henry George Keene, London 1894, p. 213.