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Jamini Roy (Indian, 1887-1972)Untitled (Jesus with Mary & Magdalene) initials lower right oil on paper 44.6 x 34.1cm (17 9/16 x 13 7/16in).FootnotesProvenance Gifted to Professor Ahmed Ali by the artist in 1947-48 before Ahmed Ali left for the National University in China as the British Council's visiting professor; Inherited from the above by the vendor. FOR THE FRONT PAGE OF THIS COLLECTION The Collection of Orooj Ahmed Ali Orooj Ahmed Ali, is a collector, dealer, consultant, curator and promoter of art, both locally and abroad. Featured twice in Nigaah magazine, first in 2012 as an art collector and then in 2016 as one of the 50 Most influential people in Pakistani Art, it is unsurprising to learn that he has been immersed in the world of art since his childhood. His mother, Bilquis Jehan Begum (1926-1985) was a musician, writer, and artist, who painted figures, abstract, and surreal subjects, in a vibrant and Impressionist style whilst his father, Professor Ahmed Ali, was a novelist, poet, critic, and diplomat, who was deeply involved in the cultural scene of pre and post partition India and Pakistan, and befriended writers and artists, including, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Edward Thomson, from the Bloomsbury Group, Han Su Yin, Jamini Roy and Zainul Abedin Sadequain had great regard for him; and Qi Bai Shi, the Chinese master painter, also knew him during his second stay in China (1950-52). Despite being surrounded by antiques and antiquities, it was only in 2004 that Orooj began to collect and deal in art professionally, having spent the early part of his life working as an exporter and manufacturer of terry fabrics, and representing Pakistan at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1987 and 1990 as a literary agent and publisher. Since then, he has successfully helped clients sell their collections, which included works by artists such as Sadequain, Shakir Ali, Zubeda Agha, Bashir Mirza Ahmed Parvez Gulgee, Anna Molka, Jamil Naqsh Hamidur Rehman, and S M Sultan, to name but a few. The works being offered from Orooj's collection include works by some of Pakistan's, India's, and Bangladesh's finest artists, and Bonhams is honoured to have this opportunity to present them. AHMED ALI (1st July 1910-14th January 1994) Novelist, poet, critic, diplomat, distinguished scholar and co-founder of the All India Progressive Writers' Movement, Ahmed Ali was born in Delhi in 1910. A pioneer of the modern Urdu short story, some of his notable works include: Angarey (Embers), 1932 Hamari Gali (Our Lane), 1940; Qaid Khana (The Prison House), 1942; and Maut Se Pehle (Before Death), 1945. Equally accomplished in English, he achieved international fame with his first English novel, Twilight in Delhi, published by the Hogarth Press, London, 1940, which describes the decline of the Muslim aristocracy with the advance of British colonialism in the early 20th century. He was educated at the universities of Aligarh and Lucknow and later taught at both, amongst other universities, including Presidency College, Calcutta, where he was the Head of the English department between 1932-1947. Between 1942-1945 he was also the BBC's representative and Director Listener Research in India, and was later appointed by the British Government of India as the British Council's Visiting Professor of English to the National Central University of China, Nanking (now Nanjing). Ahmed Ali moved to Pakistan from China in 1948. Joining the Pakistan Foreign Service, he established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China as Pakistan's first envoy to Peking (now Beijing), 1950-52, and later with the Kingdom of Morocco. A skilled translator from the Arabic, Indonesian, and Chinese, in addition to Urdu, he is also well known for his English translation of the Qur'an: Al-Qur'an, A Contemporary Translation, Princeton University Press, which is recognized by Islamic scholars as one of the best existing translations of the Qur'an. Influenced by his t