Kulliyat of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (Salar Jang Museum)

The copy of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah's Kulliyat in the Salar Jang Museum, Hyderabad, is so lavishly illuminated and illustrated that Mark Zebrowski thinks it the sultan's own copy; the Divan of Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah was bound with it later, its calligraphy, format and paper being different. ² He counts it among the most richly illustrated Indian books, holding the earliest Golconda paintings in an original style. ^{1 4}

It has eight illustrations, not seven as earlier reported. The first six, among them a Polo Match on folio 5a, glisten with pricked gold surfaces and iridescent colours, the richest expression of Golconda taste; the author gives them to the artist he calls the Hyderabad painter, strongly Indian though related to Bukhara painting, especially to Muhammad Murad Samarqandi. The last two (fols. 93a, 97b) are by a more sober, less gifted Bukhara artist. ^{3 5} There is no colophon, so the date is unknown, and none of the paintings is signed. ⁵