Prince Kamrup at the head of a troop of cavalry attacking a demon Bengal, circa 1780Prince Kamrup at the head of a troop of cavalry attacking a demon Bengal, circa 1780gouache and gold on paper, inscribed verso in Persian and English 175 x 250 mm.ProvenancePrivate Scottish collection.Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 5th November 2014, lot 379.With Francesca Galloway, Into the Indian Mind, London 2015, no. 22.Private UK collection.The Persian inscription verso reads tasvir-i Kamrup, 'picture of Kamrup', and the English Kamroop.The unusual subject derives from an Indian romance in which Prince Kamrup seeks out his beloved, Princess Kamalata, in the course of various adventures, battles and shipwrecks. They are finally united. Persian and Urdu versions of such Indian stories became popular, especially in Bengal. An illustrated manuscript of the text Dastur-i Himmat, The Model of Resolution, originally composed in 1685, was produced in Bengal circa 1760, containing 209 paintings (now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin: see L. Y. Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings in the Chester Beatty Library, London 1995, pp. 623-654). Some elements of such work, the product of the Bengal courts, appear in our painting, such as the figures and their profiles against a plain ground.