Portrait for Shaukat Begam wife of Bahadur Shah II Delhi, by the artists Mahmud Faizul and his pupil, Asmuddin, circa 1900, after originals of 1840-50

Footnotes:

1. Portrait of Shaukat Begam, painted by Mahmud Azim, original picture painted by his father Sultan Ahmed Khan.

Backboard:

1. Original picture by Muhammad Azim, artist who died about 1830. Picture of Shaukat Begam. [...] sold and presented [?] by Sultan Ahmed Khan, son of Mahmud Ismail [?] Khan and grandson of Mahmud Azim. 25 Jan 1900. In nasta'liq script: Sultan Ahmad Khan son of Mahmud Isma'il [?] Khan in his own hand.

Emily Eden, writing in 1839, had commented on the skill of Delhi artists, including Azim, who is perhaps the grandfather of the artists of these paintings:

I had two Delhi miniature painters here, translating two of my sketches on to ivory and I never saw anything so perfect as their copy of Runjeet Singh. Azim, the best painter, is almost a genius except that he knows no perspective, so he can only copy [...] Their miniatures are so soft and beautiful. (Up The Country, quoted in M. Archer, Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period, London 1992, p. 217).

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