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Collections

Unknown
The Pilgrimage Cities of Arabia (verso), Text (recto), Folio from a Gulshan-i 'Ishq (Flower Garden of Love)circa 1710

Not on view
Manuscript painting, bird's-eye view of a sacred city with two architectural diagrams at top, dense white buildings, minarets, and a black cubic structure in a courtyard, in opaque watercolor

Unknown, The Pilgrimage Cities of Arabia (verso), Text (recto), Folio from a Gulshan-i 'Ishq (Flower Garden of Love), circa 1710, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Edwin Binney, 3rd, Collection of Turkish Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Artist or Maker
Unknown
Title
The Pilgrimage Cities of Arabia (verso), Text (recto), Folio from a Gulshan-i 'Ishq (Flower Garden of Love)
Place Made
India, Telangana, Hyderabad
Date Made
circa 1710
Medium
Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
Dimensions
Image (Image): 10 5/8 x 5 5/8 in. (26.9875 x 14.2875 cm) Sheet (Sheet): 14 7/8 x 8 5/8 in. (37.7825 x 21.9075 cm) Frame: 23 1/2 × 19 1/2 × 1 1/4 in. (59.69 × 49.53 × 3.18 cm)
Credit Line
The Edwin Binney, 3rd, Collection of Turkish Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Accession Number
M.85.237.74
Classification
Drawings
Collecting Area
South and Southeast Asian Art
Curatorial Notes

The Gulshan-i 'Ishq (Flower Garden of Love) was written in Deccani Urdu in 1657 by Mullah Nusrati (birthname: Muhammad Nusrati, d. 1674). He was a court poet of Sultan Ali Adil Shah II of Bijapur (r. 1656-1672). The Gulshan-i 'Ishq is one of several renditions of an ancient tale of the forbidden young lovers, Prince Manohar and Madhumalati. The original version is an 8th-century Sanskrit drama by Bhavabhuti. Later narrations of the tale include renderings by the Rajasthani poet Chaturbhujdas in circa 1500 (see M.86.345.9) and a Sufi poem composed in 1545 by Mir Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri. This folio is from a dispersed Gulshan-i 'Ishq attributed to Hyderabad, circa 1710. Another folio from this manuscript is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2011.183). Additional manuscripts of the Gulshan-i 'Ishq are in Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad.

Verso: The pilgrimage cities of Arabia are depicted in an aerial perspective map that provides a panoramic bird’s-eye view of the Kaaba in the Masjid al-Haram (Inviolable Mosque) at Mecca (upper right), the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (Prophet's Mosque) at Medina (upper left), and other architectural complexes. The Kaaba and the Prophet’s Mosque are rendered in formulaic depictions based on Turkish sources. The remaining sites are portrayed following the visual traditions of Hindu and Jain pilgrimage maps, such as the myriad vistas of Shatrunjaya Hill in Palitana, Gujarat.

Recto: Calligraphy in nastaliq script.

Selected Bibliography
  • Denny, Walter B. Turkish Treasures from the Collection of Edward Binney, 3rd. Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1979.