Left: Mir Kalān Khān (Indian, active ca. 1730-1775), Ibrāhīm Ibn Adham of Balkh Served by Angels, Faizabad, India, ca. 1750-75. Paper on card. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1911, MS M.458.32r
Right: Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941), Dark Night Chase, after William Blake and Max Ernst, 1982. Gum bichromate print. Collection of Emmet and Edith Gowin
In a series of crayon rubbings, Gowin used a toy kit designed to help children create drawings of fantastic monsters. The rubbings in this print become figures against a blue-black sky, floating above a horizon line.
In Mir Kalān Khān’s manuscript illumination of an ascetic in the wilderness, the brightly colored wings of attendant angels contrast with the moonlight tones that prevail in the scene around them. Khan's composition may be derived from portrayals of Christ being fed by angels during his forty days in the wilderness.