A Small Ivory Head from Lucknow

Extract

In February, 1923, I was staying in Lucknow as a member of an official mission from Siam studying Rural Co-operative Credit in Northern India. One morning I was taken by my host on a visit to the Lucknow market, and I brought away with me three “prizes”, the first, a very delicate picture of a Mohammedan Saint, with Koran and rosary, sitting outside a rocky cell, by that famous painter of Shah Jahan's time, Mansūr; the second, a miniature of Nur Jahan, which has since been set in an ivory frame surrounded by sapphires; and the third, a small ivory head, the subject of this note.