Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.13441

    Portrait of Mahommed Hussun

    Date
    1815
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Unknown Deli artist (Indian) , Artist
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN38165
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 280mm
    width (print): 210mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > landscape
    Description
    Portrait of Mahommed Hussun from Wurdaunzye, near Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan, shown wearing a white turban, a brown overcoat, a pink striped shirt and black boots.

    Plate 10 from Mountstuart Elphinstone's An account of the Kingdom of Caubul and its dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India… (London, 1815), an account of his embassy to the ruler of Afghanistan, Shuja Shah Durrani Khan (1785-1842) in 1808.

    Inscribed “PL. X. A Khojeh of Uzbek Tartary. Published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & brown, Paternoster Row, 1815”

    According to the accompanying text, ‘Their dress is a shirt and trowsers of cotton, a coat of tunic (called Chuppaun) os silken or woollen cloth, tied on with a girdle; and over it a gown of woollen cloth, posteen or felt; some wear in winter a little cap of broad cloth, lined with fun, sitting close to the head, and others a pointed silken cap, called a calpauk, alone; but the national head-dress is a large white turban worn in general over a calpauk. All wear boots at all hours…the muhusee is of thin and light shagreen leather, without heels or soles, so that the wearer is obliged to put on shows when he goes out.’

    An original 1808-1810 watercolour of this subject is in the British Library.

    Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859), East India Company administrator from 1776, known for his periods as Resident at Poona and Governor of Bombay in the 1810s and 1820s, and involvement in the Anglo-Maratha wars.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > Uzbekistan
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > India
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