African Soldier Features in Bonhams Islamic and Indian Art sale in London

The Persian city of Isfahan in the late Safavid Empire – the late 17th / early 18th centuries – was a melting pot of diversity from around the known world. Here people of all cultures and creeds came together whether European, Jewish, Armenian or African; ambassadors rubbed shoulders with traders; scholars visited – some stayed and settled. The very rare Portrait of an African Soldier in the Islamic and Indian sale in London on Tuesday 30 March perfectly represents the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the time and place. The work by an anonymous Persian artist is believed to be the first portrait of an African figure in Persian art and one of the earliest artistic records of the African community that is still present in the Gulf region. It is estimated at £100,000-150,000.

The painting, which was executed between 1680-90, shows a young African man dressed as a soldier and is rich in detail with typically Persian weapons and equipment, and European-influenced uniform and hat. While the sitter is not identified, he is likely to have been a real-life soldier, a musketeer or tofangchi, a division of the Persian army primarily composed of foreign mercenaries.

Oliver White, Bonhams Head of Islamic and Indian Art said, "This is a wonderful painting. The artist has captured the soldier's confidence in his status and profession and dress, creating a well-to-do, almost dandyish, image. We cannot, of course, know how he arrived in Isfahan. He may have come via the Arab trade from East Africa and the Indian Ocean into the Gulf; he could have been freed as a condition of service in the Persian army, or he may simply have been a free man who had ended up in the city, like so many others. What is beyond question, however, is the significance of the work – a rare, perhaps unique portrayal of an African in the Safavid army, and of an African in Persia."

21 other paintings of similar shape and style, all showing figures in Safavid costume, are known to exist, and it is possible that Portrait of an African Soldier once had a companion piece depicting a young African woman. The presence of Africans in Persia dates from as far back as the 6th century, mainly – though not exclusively – through the slave trade. Today, small but significant Afro-Iranian communities are still to be found in the coastal provinces of the Persian Gulf.

Other highlights of the sale include:

The Chief Minister (wazir) of the Sikh Kingdom, Raja Lal Singh, holding a Hawk, with the City of Lahore seen behind him, by Augustus Schoefft. The work was executed in around 1841 by the Austro-Hungarian artist Schoefft who painted several portraits of members of the Court of the Maharaja of Lahore.

The subject – Raja Lal Singh – was a Wazir of the Sikh Empire. Despite being commander of the Sikh Khalsa Amy during the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-6, he was secretly working with the British and was rewarded with the title of Wazir of Lahore. His brief moment of power ended, however, when he was discovered in yet more double-dealing, stripped of his possessions and sent into exile. Raja Lal – which means Red Lion – accepted his fate with equanimity and ended his days as a minor local celebrity, entertaining visitors and pursing his twin hobbies of archaeology and – rather alarmingly – surgery. Estimate: £150,000-200,000.

A diamond-set forehead pendant (chand-tikka) from the collection of Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817-63), wife of Maharajah Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), made in the Punjab, probably Lahore, in the first half of the 19th century. The only surviving widow of Ranjit Singh, Jindan Kaur led spirited resistance to the encroachment of the British into the Punjab but was eventually forced to surrender. More than 600 pieces of her jewellery from the legendary treasury of Lahore were confiscated, and she was imprisoned before escaping to Nepal in 1848. The chand-tikka was almost certainly among the jewellery restored to back to Maharani Jindan Kaur by the British authorities when she agreed to live in London with her son, Duleep Singh. It was sold by Garrads of Regent Street, London after the Maharani's death in 1863. Estimate: £90,000-120,000.