Zafir Khan, a soldier (sipahi) Kutch, circa 1850

Zafir Khan, a soldier (sipahi)
Kutch, circa 1850
watercolour on paper, part of watermark visible, inscribed at bottom Saffer Khan Morvee Sepaee
218 x 135 mm.
Provenance
Sotheby's, Indian Miniatures, the Travel Sale: India and the Far East, Modern & Contemporary South Asian Paintings, 17th June 1999, lot 62.
Private US collection.

For an album of twenty-six similar Kutch paintings, formerly in the possession of Lt. Stanley Raikes, British Political Resident in the region from 1847, see J. P. Losty, Indian Life and People in the 19th Century: Company Paintings in the Tapi Collection, Delhi 2019, pp. 139-154. The figure in our painting greatly resembles one of two men shown in one painting (p. 142, no. 34B), depicting 'Retainers of HH the Rao of Kutch' - both his face, but also his dress, including the colours of his cummerbund. The paper of one page of the album is watermarked 1850, and several of the paintings are dated 1854.