The game of ganjifa, North India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow or Faizabad, second half of the 18th century, attributable to Faizullah Musavvir Gouache and gold on paper depicting a group of four women seated or kneeling on the terrace of a palace, playing a game of ganjifa by candlelight, the scene taking place at night. A fifth woman on the left serves a drink from a small cup. On the right-hand upright of the pavilion porch behind them, an Arabic inscription reads "amal Faizullah musavvir" ("Made by the painter Faizullah"). Mounted on a cardboard album page with two gilded floral borders on beige and midnight-blue backgrounds respectively. On the reverse, calligraphic composition in Persian nasta'liq with eight verses from Sa'adi's Boustan, probably Iran qâjâr, inscribed in oblique and horizontal reserves on a squared background and separated by cartouches and spandrels illuminated in gold and polychrome, a frieze of gilded palmettes on a midnight-blue background encircling the whole mounted with a gold-powdered margin. Framed. Page size: 33.4 x 25.6 cm; painting size: 23.3 x 15.6 cm; calligraphy size: 18.7 x 11.7 cm Painting: small tears, small fillings and traces of varnish (?), some polychromy; calligraphy: accidents, missing parts, folds, stains. Provenance : Galerie Joseph Soustiel, Paris, acquired in the 1960s (label on back).