A Spotted Forktail

This nineteenth-century bird study, inscribed to artists of the seventeenth century, is intriguing in that it challenges the Western notion of a copy as not merely an inferior work but actually a forgery. Indian artists did not consider it inappropriate or deceitful to closely copy a fine painting, including even the original artist's signature. Rather, they looked upon it as a tribute to the earlier artist.

The Spotted Forktail is a Himalayan bird that lives near streams that run through densly forested ravines. Its black-and-white plumage provides camouflage among the rocks and water as it searches for insects. To produce this copy of a work by the noted seventeenth-century artist Abul Hasan, the artist has inverted a tracing of the original, thereby reversing the image. He has misattributed it to the other famed natural history painter, Mansur. An inner border of rhyming couplets and a second border of palmettes and flower heads separate the painting from its wide outer floral border.