A ROYAL POLO MATCH
Possibly Tabriz or Qazvin, Safavid Iran, mid to late 16th century

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the fragmentary horizontal-format illustration depicting a royal polo match with a gold-clad princess on her white steed, snatching the ball from her opponent, a distinctively dressed prince, both wearing tall and heeled Central Asian boots, flanked by two players on each side, the characters on the left hand-side wearing tall cusped headdresses and fur-lined hats, the others with turbans, indicating a difference not only in attire but also origin, possibly a match between royals belonging to different parts of the Indo-Persianate world, the reverse bearing stamps of at least four seals, some with Persian characters, now rubbed off or hardly legible, pasted on a cream-coloured mount.

The painting 11.5cm x 15cm, 23.7cm x 27.5cm including the mount