A REVERSE GLASS PAINTING OF AN INDIAN MUSICAL... Lot 167

A REVERSE GLASS PAINTING OF AN INDIAN MUSICAL GATHERING IN A PALACE INTERIOR China made for the Indian export market, 19th century Opaque pigments, polychrome enamels, white wash, silver, and gold on glass, the horizontal-format composition depicting a courtly gathering with three musicians standing in the background, accompanied by two female dancers on a floral masnad floor spread in the middle ground, surrounded by ten noblemen gazing in admiration, each holding a rose stem in their hands, a recurrent motif in Mughal portraiture, wearing blue, white, and red gowns and embroidered light-blue turbans, many pale white glass lamps hanging from the ceiling, the scene replicating an idealised 19th-century Indian palatial interior, framed, 54cm x 69cm including the frame.