400-year-old Mughal portrait sold for £571,500, nearly 5 times estimate

A Mughal album page is a decorated folio that brings together paintings, calligraphy and ornamental borders. It was designed as part of a larger album rather than as an independent image. This matters because the page combines visual art and literary culture in a single object.

Here, the central portrait shows a courtier holding a book. It measures only 10.4 by 5.4 centimetres, but the full page measures 38.9 by 25.2 centimetres. Gold borders, animals, birds, flowers and streams surround the portrait. The reverse contains Persian verses in nasta'liq script.

That combination makes the page different from an ordinary painting. It has a portrait attributed to Manohar, calligraphy signed by Abdullah al-Husayni, and decoration on both sides. Christie's also believes it once formed a pair with another Mughal page, showing how album pages were arranged as related works.

The Mughal album page sold for £571,500 at Christie's London auction on April 28, 2026. Its estimate had been £80,000 to £120,000. The final price therefore greatly exceeded the auction house's expectations and made the page the leading lot in the sale.

The comparison is especially striking against the top estimate. £571,500 is nearly 4.8 times £120,000, the estimate's upper limit. The page was offered as part of The Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection of Indian Paintings and Calligraphy. The complete collection achieved £5,278,882.

The result shows how an estimate is a guide, not a fixed value. The sale attracted registrants from 21 countries, and 14% of bidders were new to Christie's. All 84 lots sold, indicating strong demand across the collection and intense interest in this particular Mughal work.

Size does not determine an artwork's importance or auction value. This page mattered because it preserved several connected forms of Mughal art: portraiture, Persian poetry, calligraphy, gold decoration and album design. Its small scale made the detailed craftsmanship especially concentrated.

The central image is attributed to Manohar, a Mughal artist active in the early 17th century. The reverse is signed by Abdullah al-Husayni and dated AH 1017, or 1608-09. Gold-illuminated borders show mammals, waterfowl, flowers and streams. The page also passed through notable collections and earlier auctions.

Christie's believed the page may once have faced another Mughal painting with matching borders. That possible pairing adds historical meaning. Its documented ownership began with Michael Knatchbull in 1937, and it later belonged to the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, strengthening its appeal to collectors.

Manohar was a Mughal artist active in the early 17th century. Christie's attributes the portrait to him, and his name appears in the painting's lower-left corner. He contributed the image of the courtier holding a book, painted with opaque pigments heightened with gold.

Abdullah al-Husayni was the calligrapher responsible for the written component. His inscription on the reverse reads that he wrote it and gives the date 1017, corresponding to 1608-09. The page includes nasta'liq verses on the reverse and eight couplets in one border.

Their roles show how the page was assembled from complementary arts. Manohar supplied the portrait, while Abdullah supplied the literary and calligraphic structure. The signature connects the page to other Mughal album leaves, including a Dara Shikoh album folio dated AH 1018.

Mughal album pages combined different artistic forms within one carefully planned design. A portrait could sit beside or opposite poetry, while borders and margins connected the elements visually. This approach made the page both an image and a literary object.

On this page, a courtier holding a book occupies the central painted panel. Gold-illuminated inner borders surround it. The outer margins show mammals and waterfowl among flowers and streams, rendered in gold and several colours. One border contains eight nasta'liq couplets, while the reverse has diagonal and vertical lines of script.

The design also helped related pages work as pairs. Christie's believes this page once faced a prince reading from a scroll. Both pages apparently shared nasta'liq verses and illuminated borders. Such matching features allowed separate paintings to function as parts of one larger album arrangement.

Provenance is the recorded history of an artwork's ownership and movement. At auction, it can support an object's credibility by showing where it has been and when. A clear record also helps distinguish a documented work from one with an uncertain or unexplained past.

This page's history begins with Michael Knatchbull, the 5th Baron Brabourne, who owned it by September 2, 1937. It entered A.C. Ardeshir's collection by 1939, appeared at Sotheby's in 1973 and Christie's in 1980, returned to the UK market in 2019, and later joined the Cowles collection.

That chain does not alone determine the final price, but it adds confidence and context. It connects the page with earlier catalogues, collectors and sales. Combined with the signatures, attribution and possible original pairing, the documented history helped make the object compelling to international bidders.

An auction estimate is a forecast of likely bidding, not a ceiling. When several buyers believe a rare artwork is worth more, they compete by making progressively higher offers. The auction continues until all but one bidder withdraws, and the winning bid determines the sale price.

That mechanism explains this page's result. Christie's estimated it at £80,000 to £120,000, but it ultimately sold for £571,500. The final figure was nearly 4.8 times the highest estimate. Its rarity, signed calligraphy, attribution to Manohar, decorative quality and documented history likely gave bidders reasons to compete strongly.

The outcome also shows how international demand can reshape expectations. The wider Cowles sale attracted registrants from 21 countries, and all 84 lots sold. In this case, competition transformed a modest estimate into the auction's standout result and the highest price in the collection.