The Imperial Image

The Imperial Image

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THE IMPERIAL IMAGE

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The Imperial Image Paintings for the Mughal Court

Revised and expanded edition

Milo Cleveland Beach

Freer Gallery of Art Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Mapin Publishing

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Copyright © 2012, Smithsonian Institution, all rights reserved Published by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and Mapin Publishing, 502 Paritosh, Near Darpana Academy, Usmanpura Riverside Ahmedabad 380 013 India Revised and expanded edition of The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court, by Milo Cleveland Beach (Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, 1981) Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2012 by Grantha Corporation, 77 Daniele Drive, Hidden Meadows, Ocean Township, NJ 07712 E: mapin@mapinpub.com Cover image: Jahangir Embracing Shah Abbas (detail, no. 22a rev) Title page: Shah Jahan Standing on a Globe (detail, no. 24d) Editors: Nancy Eickel and Jane Lusaka Catalogue design: Studio A, Alexandria, VA Image and Photo Services: John Tsantes Rights and Reproductions: Cory Grace Publications Assistant: Jenna Vaccaro

Distributors North America Antique Collectors’ Club, USA E: info@antiquecc.com www.antiquecollectorsclub.com UK and Europe Gazelle Book Services Ltd E: sales@gazellebooks.co.uk www.gazellebookservices.co.uk Australia and New Zealand Peribo Pty Ltd., Australia E: michael.coffey@peribo.com.au Southeast Asia Paragon Asia Co. Ltd, Thailand E: info@paragonasia.com Rest of the world Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beach, Milo Cleveland.

The imperial image : paintings for the Mughal court / Milo Cleveland Beach. — Rev. ed. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-934686-11-2 (alk. paper) 1. Illumination of books and manuscripts, Mogul—Catalogs. 2.

Islamic illumination of books and manuscripts—India—Catalogs.

3. Painting, Mogul—Catalogs. 4.

Islamic painting—India—Catalogs. 5. Illumination of books and manuscripts--Washington (D.C.)—Catalogs. 6. Freer Gallery of Art—Catalogs. 7. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institution)— Catalogs. I. Title. II. Title: Paintings for the Mughal court.

ND3247.B39 2011 745.6’70954074753—dc22 2010016828

Board of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (as of September 16, 2011) Mr. James Lintott, Chair Mr. Jeffrey P. Cunard, Vice-Chair Mrs. Jane Bernstein, Secretary Mr. Michael de Havenon Mrs. Mary Patricia Wilkie Ebrahimi Ms. Merit E. Janow Ms. Shirley Z. Johnson Mr. H. Christopher Luce Mrs. Constance C. Miller Mrs. Susan Pillsbury Ms. Diane H. Schafer Mr. David Solo Mrs. Patricia P. Tang Mr. Ladislaus von Hoffman Ex Officio Mr. G. Wayne Clough Mr. Richard Kurin Mr. Julian Raby Honorary Mrs. Cynthia Helms Sir Joseph Hotung

ISBN 978-0-934686-11-2 (Freer|Sackler) ISBN 978-1-935677-16-1 (Grantha) ISBN 978-81-89995-62-1 (Mapin)

Typeset in Caecilia and Locator Printed by Tien Wah Press in Singapore

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CONTENTS

6

Foreword Julian Raby, Director

7

Preface and Acknowledgments

9

Introduction The Art of the Book Milo Cleveland Beach

153

Catalogue Pre-Mughal Traditions Mughal Manuscripts Albums Single Paintings

195

Endnotes

201

Appendix of Mughal Artists

217

Selected Bibliography

225

Credits

227

Index

232

A Note to the Reader

41 51 101

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Foreword

For more than a century—since 1907, when Charles Lang Freer purchased his first set of Indian Mughal paintings and manuscripts—the Freer Gallery of Art and later, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery have been regarded as among the leading institutions for Mughal art. This is due to the exceptional quality of many of the museums’ paintings, whose imperial origin has prompted research especially on the relationships between the artists and their patrons. Illustrated and calligraphic folios from the Baburnama, the Jahangirnama, and the Late Shah Jahan Album, among other manuscripts, have propelled the Galleries to the forefront of art-historical scholarly discourse.

This interest in Mughal art has been made possible by the committed research and perceptive collecting of the staff and scholars who built upon Freer’s initial foundation. To expand the Freer Gallery’s early holdings in this field, the museum’s first director, John Fullerton Lodge, relied largely on his own discernment throughout his lengthy twentytwo-year tenure and on acquisitions from connoisseur Hagop Kevorkian. Richard Ettinghausen, curator from 1944 to 1967 and one of the great scholars of Islamic art, solidified the museum’s international reputation as a leading resource on Mughal art, as did Thomas Lawton, who became director in 1977 and oversaw the construction and opening of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery ten years later. During the late 1970s, Milo Cleveland Beach, then associated with Williams College, organized the groundbreaking exhibition The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court (1981), which focused on works in the Freer collection produced for the emperors of India largely between 1560 and 1640. That exhibition and its related catalogue, as well as Milo’s appointment as director of the Freer and Sackler in 1988, helped to open a new era of connoisseurship in Mughal paintings.

Limited space here permits mention of only a few of the resulting publications. Milo and Glenn D. Lowry, then curator of Near Eastern art, compiled a double volume on the extraordinary collection of Islamic arts of the book assembled by French jeweler Henri Vever (1854–1942), which was acquired by the Sackler Gallery in 1986. Major imperial manuscripts, including the Baburnama (1996), Padshahnama (1997), Jahangirnama (1999), and Hamzanama (2002), were translated

by Wheeler M. Thackston. Monumental exhibitions at the Sackler frequently coincided with these publications. Several of these included major loans, but the Freer and Sackler collections played a considerable role as well.

Interspersed with these monumental books were numerous articles and chapters on diverse aspects of Mughal art and culture, written by such noteworthy scholars as John Seyller, Esin Atil, Gauvin Bailey, Thomas Lentz, Ebba Koch, M. Shreve Simpson, Susan Nemazee, and Debra Diamond. One name, however, recurs time and again: Milo Cleveland Beach. His consistent enthusiasm for Mughal art and his high standards of scholarship have set him apart for years.

It is an honor for the Freer and Sackler to publish this revised and expanded edition of Imperial Image. It not only documents the explosion of research and interest in imperial Mughal art since 1981, but it also stands as a testament to the lasting influence of a true gentleman and scholar.

Julian Raby, Dame Jillian Sackler Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art

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Preface and Acknowledgments

Since 1981, when the earlier edition of The Imperial Image was published, many new acquisitions have been added to the collection of Indian paintings in the Freer Gallery of Art of the Smithsonian Institution. The construction and opening in 1987 of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which is physically linked to and jointly administered with the Freer Gallery, further expanded the Asian art collections available in Washington. Before its inauguration, the Sackler had acquired a large and important group of Islamic paintings assembled by the French jeweler Henri Vever, including pages from many of the same manuscripts and albums represented already in the Freer, as well as other closely related works. Together, the Freer and Sackler Galleries now provide unrivalled resources for the exhibition and study of painting in Mughal India, and this new publication is the first to integrate these two collections.

Much new information about Mughal painting has been discovered and published since 1981. For that reason, many of the lists of comparative works and appendices included earlier have been omitted from this new edition. Much of that information has been updated and is available in the reference material cited throughout this study. As before, a small number of related works from other artistic centers has been included to establish a broader context.

I remain extraordinarily grateful for the help and advice of the many people mentioned in the earlier edition, most particularly Thomas Lawton, then director of the Freer Gallery of Art, who initially suggested this catalogue and arranged for a coordinated exhibition, and to Bipin Shah, who proposed this newly expanded edition. Crucially important to the project have been Dr. John Seyller, as a sounding board for ideas and visual judgments, and Dr. Wheeler Thackston, for his fine new translations of Persian texts and inscriptions. Dr. Julian Raby, director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries; Massumeh Farhad, chief curator and curator of Islamic art; Debra Diamond, associate curator of South and Southeast Asian art; and Elizabeth Duley, head of collections management, have provided important information. Najiba Choudhury and Emily Jacobson have painstakingly checked and refined registrarial information. In addition, Nancy Eickel has been an unusually deft and sensitive editor of a complicated text. Jane Lusaka has contributed her invaluable attention to details, and Jenna Vaccaro has assisted with photography research. I also offer my grateful thanks to Antonio Alcalá of Studio A for his inspired design and for always keeping the reader in mind.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their ongoing support over many years. I rededicate The Imperial Image to Olga Beach Lassalle, Toby Beach, and Sophie Beach in thanks for their continual enthusiasm and understanding.

Milo C. Beach

P R E FA C E A N D A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

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The Art of the Book

Fig. 1 Jahangir Giving Books to Shaykhs (detail, no. 22d obv)

IN MUSLIM INDIA, AS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD IN GENERAL, books were regarded as precious objects. Physically valuable because of the materials and time that went into their preparation, they were tangible evidence of wealth, intelligence, and power. They were also among the most coveted spoils of war. Emperor Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur recorded in his memoirs (Baburnama) an incident in his battle with Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi, whose defeat in 1526 established the Mughal dynasty in India.

After spending two nights on this hill, on Monday I entered the fortress for an inspection and went into Ghazi Khan’s library, which held a few valuable books. I gave some of them to Humayun and sent others to Kamran [his sons]. Although there were many learned books, there were not so many valuable ones as I expected.1 In turn, it was written of Humayun, who was Babur’s successor and the father of Akbar, when books were plundered from his camp during a less successful battle, Near dawn, five or six thousand bhils and gawars fell upon the royal enclosure, His Majesty . . . and the troops having retired to a rising ground. The gawars came and proceeded to plunder, and many rare books, which were real companions and were always kept in His Majesty’s personal possession, were lost.2 The acquisition of books was not always so violent, of course, for books were also prime ceremonial presentation objects. One detail (fig. 1) shows Emperor Jahangir presenting books to Muslim holy men. In addition, when a nobleman died, everything in his possession went to the emperor, who would return to the family only those things he chose not to retain. A contemporary source for such information is found in the Muntakhabu-t-Tawarikh of Badaoni.

Shaikh Faizi left a library of 4,600 volumes, some of them exquisitely copied with what may be said to be even unnecessary care and expense. Most of them were autographs of their respective authors or at least copied by their contemporaries. They were all transferred to the king’s library, after being cataloged and numbered.3 This passage is useful for giving some idea of the size of a major noble’s library (compared to that of Akbar, who reportedly left twenty-four thousand books at his death in 1605). The three quotes together also reveal that the movement of books—whether through presentation or plunder—provided the upper classes with a wide familiarity of a broad range of literary and artistic tastes.

THE ART OF THE BOOK

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Fig. 2a–d Marginal figures burnishing paper,

The A’in-i-Akbari of Abu’l Fazl describes the arrangement and activity of Akbar’s library.

His Majesty’s library is divided into several parts; some of the books are kept within, and some without the Harem. Each part

sizing folios, preparing gold leaf, and practicing callig-

of the library is subdivided, according to the value of the books and the estimation in which the sciences are held of which

raphy (details, A Prince on Horseback

this order they are also inspected. Experienced people bring them daily and read them before His Majesty, who hears every

Offering Wine to a Youth in a Tree House, no. 20d obv)

the books treat. Prose books, poetical works, Hindi, Persian, Greek, Kashmirian, [and] Arabic are all separately placed. In book from beginning to end. At whatever page the readers daily stop, His Majesty makes with his own pen a sign, according to the number of the pages, and rewards the readers with presents of cash, either in gold or silver, according to the number of leaves read out by them. Among books of renown, there are few that are not read in His Majesty’s assembly hall; and there are no historical facts of the past ages, or curiosities of science, or interesting points of philosophy with which His Majesty, a leader of impartial sages, is unacquainted.4 The basis of such a library was the group of artists and artisans who copied, bound, and embellished the texts. Each patron had his own workshop of men dependent for their livelihood on responsiveness to his demands and taste, and as might be expected, rivalries developed. Conscious of their own mobility, artists found talent rewarded with increasingly prestigious positions, perhaps eventually in the imperial studios. A contemporary history, the Tarikh-i-Akbari, relates that one hundred men worked for Akbar on the great Hamzanama (Story of Hamza) manuscript (no. 6)5— admittedly the largest project then known—and this number would have included papermakers, leatherworkers (for covers), gilders, illuminators, scribes, and painters, as well as apprentices to burnish the paper and to prepare pigments and brushes. A series of superb and informative studies of such men at work is the subject of the marginal decorations on a page from Jahangir’s great Gulshan Album (see fig. 2). Each project was directed by a master artist or administrator, who selected which episodes of the texts would be illustrated and to which painter each would be assigned. In some cases this decision would have been determined in consultation with the patron. We know that Akbar, for example, was personally involved in the trial-and-error process of creation: “The works of all painters are weekly laid before His Majesty by the Daroghas and the clerks; he then confers rewards according to excellence of workmanship, or increases the monthly salaries.”6 For some illustrations, work was shared. A master artist made the design, a lesser or younger painter executed the actual painting, and either the designer or a third major artist drew important portraits. In one such example (no. 12), the design and portraits are by Keshav Kalan (or Keshav Das), and the execution is by Kamali. All of this information usually is noted in the bottom margin of the work by a court librarian,7 and if it is not there or if the borders have been trimmed (as on no. 10b, among many others), then the game of speculative attribution is played. Jahangir was the first to proclaim an ability to recognize individual artists’ styles.

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I derive such enjoyment from painting and have such expertise in judging it that, even without the artist’s name being mentioned, no work of past or present masters can be shown to me that I do not instantly recognize who did it. Even if it is a scene of several figures and each face is by a different master, I can tell who did which face. If in a single painting different persons have done the eyes and eyebrows, I can determine who drew the face and who made the eyes and eyebrows.8 One wonders, however, whether anyone would have corrected the emperor had his judgments been wrong.

While this system of shared work was in force especially for several of the major historical manuscripts of the 1580s and 1590s—the circa 1589 Baburnama (no. 8), the first Akbarnama (no. 9), the Tarikh-i-Alfi (no. 11), or the Jami al-Tawarikh of 1596 (no. 12), for example—it clearly resulted in paintings that almost inevitably suffered from the combination of different sensibilities and levels of talent. The second Akbarnama (History of Akbar) illustrations (nos.

10a–g) are predominantly by individual artists working unassisted, and the overall quality of work is much higher than in the earlier illustrated copy of that text (no. 9). After the 1590s, such a systematic division of labor was rare.

Certain artists had specialties, such as battle or court scenes, portraits, or animal studies, and while the names of many artists are known, only a small group was responsible for the majority of designs or illustrations in any one volume (e.g., Basawan, Daswanth, La‘l, Miskin). Painters regularly worked for specific patrons. It is very unusual to come across a reference to an independent artist, at least within the bounds of Mughal patronage. We do find many references to painters who, for a variety of reasons, might leave one man’s employ for that of another; this they were usually free to do. Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad, successive directors of the Hamzanama project, for example, both left Iran when the Safavid shah Tahmasb turned orthodox and dismissed painters from his employ. When Farrukh Beg was already a mature artist, he also forsook Iran but entered the employ of Muhammad-Hakim (Akbar’s half-brother) in Kabul. He arrived in India in 1585, following Muhammad-Hakim’s death. After a short and relatively unproductive period in Akbar’s studio, Farrukh Beg proceeded to the Deccan, where his talents seemed to match perfectly the taste of the Bijapuri sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II. Eventually he returned to the Mughal court, finding a supportive patron in Jahangir. When a painter of talent was unable to secure a patron, it was a cause of note—and usually the end of his career. One of Khan Khanan’s artists, Ibrahim (who was also a calligrapher, gilder, bookbinder, engraver of precious stones, and considered a man of great talent), entered his employ in the early 1590s but soon left because of an act only vaguely alluded to in contemporary chronicles. It was noted that he “traveled, during the remainder of his life, throughout India, in search of a master and patron like the Khan Khanan, but he did not get any. He was always sorry, and regretted his mistake. At last, the messenger of death rolled the carpet of his non-existence.”9 By the late 1590s, when Mughal control was secure, the emperors no longer needed to develop a library as a symbol of political and dynastic power. They could now concentrate on the refinement of an institution that was firmly established. Imperial taste had as well become more epicurean; manuscript output was reduced, illustrations fewer and finer. The amount of time painters spent on individual works may well have increased, if the fragments of information

THE ART OF THE BOOK

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we have are any indication. A painting by Abd as-Samad, dated 1551, bears an inscription that states it was painted in half a day, while a page from the first Akbarnama of circa 1590 evidently took sixty-eight days.10 Wealth and stability also opened up more elaborate sources of supply. The finest materials, such as papers, pigments, or brushes, could

Fig. 3a, b Babur and Humayun with Courtiers (details, no. 21c)

be imported from wherever they were available, as Abu’l Fazl noted: “Much progress was made in the commodities required by painters, and the correct prices of such articles were carefully ascertained. The mixture of colours has especially been improved. The pictures thus received a hitherto unknown finish.”11 This gave painters the potential for greater control and more subtle visual effects. The refinements of the later Akbarnama (no. 10), for example, simply would not have been possible at the time of the Hamzanama (which was largely painted in the 1560s), considering the materials then available. The stylistic developments of the Mughal tradition, therefore, are the product of many factors, not the least interesting of which are the personalities and tastes of the imperial patrons.

EMPERORS BABUR AND HUMAYUN Babur (reigned 1526–30; fig. 3) founded the Mughal dynasty in India when he arrived from Kabul and defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. Most famous for his love and creation of extraordinary gardens, Babur must have patronized painters as well, although no known works are datable to his reigns in Kabul, where he established a lively court, or in India. His superb volume of memoirs, the Baburnama (History of Babur), is an entertaining and sympathetic narrative of events and people, with descriptions of the myriad details of the world of nature that Babur found intriguing. Several copies of this work were written out and illustrated during the rule of his grandson Akbar (e.g., no. 8). In addition to the usual battle and court scenes, painters illustrated his careful verbal descriptions of interesting and novel plants and animals (e.g., nos. 8d, 8e), but he was also unsparingly honest in his descriptions of himself, as shown in the extraordinary A Drunken Babur Returns to Camp at Night (no. 8b).

At the time of Babur’s arrival, northern India was divided into a number of small kingdoms, Hindu and Muslim. His defeat of the Lodi sultan gave him control over the largest and most politically potent of these, but the Rajput Hindu kingdoms to the west and the Muslim sultanates in the south and east remained dangerous rivals. These territories had patronized painting before the Mughal advent, but the works were very different from the Iranian styles that were part of Babur’s cultural heritage.

Painting in Iran under the Safavid-dynasty ruler Shah Tahmasb (reigned 1524–76), Babur’s contemporary and distant relation, was the result of a long tradition of technical and aesthetic refinement and connoisseurship. The greatest manuscript of the mid-sixteenth century, and therefore most comparable in date to the beginnings of Mughal painting, is the Haft awrang (Seven thrones) of the poet Jami in the Freer Gallery of Art. In Quay’s First Glimpse of Laila (fig. 6) from this manuscript, the fineness and richness of the pigments and their careful placement, as well as the rhythm of line, superb surface pattern, minute details, and overall technical control, are immediately apparent.

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This is the quintessence of a courtly style, and the painting is superb. It is also of so refined a sensibility that it borders on the effete.

There was no lack on energy in the styles that the Mughals encountered in India, however, and which in turn

Fig. 4a, b Humayun Seated in a Landscape (details, no. 21d)

influenced their taste. Painting had a long prior history on the subcontinent, especially in the form of wall paintings in Buddhist and Hindu places of worship. Following the arrival of Islam in the ninth century, the production of manuscripts increased. Unlike wall painting and architectural decoration, manuscripts could be hidden during the periodic threats of Muslim iconoclasm. The decline of Buddhism coincided with the rise of Islam, but the Jain and Hindu religious communities remained strong, and each patronized artists to illustrate holy books. Unlike the elitist and noble Mughal patrons, Jains and Hindus were closely tied to local folk sensibilities, and the styles of their works were deeply rooted in pan-Indian indigenous traditions. Patronage, too, was different. In both the Jain and Hindu communities, painters often remained independent of fixed patronage, accepting commissions from anyone with funds, such as rich businessmen wishing to make auspicious gifts to temples and libraries. Artistic individuality and the painter’s responsiveness to a patron’s demands—so important for understanding the Mughal tradition—seem initially less influential here.

A scroll painting dated 1451 (no. 3) is in western Indian or Jain style, but it illustrates a Hindu text, the Vasanta Vilasa (Beauty of spring), an ecstatic outpouring of devotion to the god Krishna. It shares with the Bhagavata Purana, another Krishna text (no. 4) and datable to the early sixteenth century, the use of flat areas of strong color, powerful and angular forms, and compartmentalized compositions. These works are vibrantly alive and immediate in impact, quite different from the subtlety and intricacy of contemporary Iranian works to whose style Babur would have doubtless wanted his painters to aspire since it was the tradition to which he was bred. Later in the century, Akbar would be (however briefly) enthusiastic about non-Muslim Indian styles, but Babur would probably have thought them crude if, in fact, he had any acquaintance with them at all. In his memoirs, he states that “Hindustan is a place of little charm. There is no beauty in its people, no graceful social intercourse, no poetic talent or understanding, no etiquette, nobility, or manliness. . . .

The arts and crafts have no harmony or symmetry.”12 Humayun (reigned 1530–40, 1555–56; figs. 3 and 4) succeeded his father in 1530 and ruled until 1540, when he was ousted and exiled by Sher Shah Sur, an Afghan chieftain. He went to Iran, was entertained and given troops

by Shah Tahmasb to retake Delhi, and returned to Kabul, which he seized from his brother Mirza Kamran in a lengthy series of battles. He spent several years in Kabul, eventually returning to India in 1555 to regain his former territories, but he died there the next year in a fall down a library staircase. His son Akbar, who was born in the deserts of Sind while his father was in exile, succeeded Humayun at the age of thirteen. Luckily, he inherited the energies of his grandfather Babur rather than the lassitude of Humayun. Such events were not unprecedented, for in 1494 Babur had gained his short-lived throne in Ferghana (in present-day Uzbekistan) at the age of ten, when his father fell from a pigeon tower.

Humayun definitely established a workshop of painters even before his celebrated visit to the Safavid court. The memoirs of one of his attendants relate:

THE ART OF THE BOOK

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Fig. 5 Akbar with a Sarpech (no. 21e)

The King undressed, and ordered his clothes to be washed, and in the meanwhile he wore his dressing gown; while thus sitting, a beautiful bird flew into the tent, the doors of which were immediately closed, and the bird caught; his Majesty then took a pair of scissors and cut some of the feathers off the animal; he then sent for a painter, and had a picture taken of the bird, and afterwards ordered it to be released.13 This occurred in 1542 during the emperor’s slow exit from India and certainly indicates how important painters must have been to him, for his entourage was otherwise minimal. Humayun’s interest in natural history parallels that of Babur, although we do not know in what style these works were painted, for none of these early examples remains. Several known illustrations are in a transplanted Safavid style and are datable after about 1550, when Humayun’s interest in painting as a symbol of power may well have been newly charged after his visit to Shah Tahmasb. The Akbarnama records that a meeting with the shah took place in a recently decorated palace. “In a noble palace, on the gilding of which skillful artists had long been engaged and in which they had displayed miracles of craftsmanship, an enchanting picture gallery received its inauguration by the interview with His Majesty.”14 Yet despite such projects, Tahmasb was becoming increasingly orthodox, and since picture-making was banned in certain strict forms of Islam, he released painters from his employ. Humayun was successful in hiring two major masters, Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad (see no. 20f rev). They joined him in Kabul and then returned with him to India, where they became directors of the imperial studio and the most prestigious painters in Akbar’s atelier. They were among the first of a series of Iranian exiles to seek employment at the increasingly wealthy and artistically active Mughal court. It was under Humayun’s patronage, after his return from exile in 1555, that the imperial Safavid style became firmly established as the basic element of Mughal painting. We can best judge Mughal developments by their departure from, and relationship to, that style.

EMPEROR AKBAR The personal dynamism of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605; fig. 5) is well presented in the pages of the Akbarnama, the official biography he commissioned from Abu’l Fazl. His exploits of hunting tiger, riding rutting elephants, conquering Rajput fortresses, discussing religious doctrine with Jesuit priests, building a new capital city at Fatehpur Sikri, or punishing a rebellious noble by dunking him in a river (no. 10d) are all described in detail. It is important to establish a chronology of major events, for they affected the evolution of his interests as a patron of the arts.

Akbar was born in 1542 during Humayun’s journey to Iran, but as the trip was difficult, the child was left behind with attendants, rejoining his father in Kabul three years later. These were hardly secure times. Young Akbar was seized by his uncle Kamran, and during one of the several battles that the brothers fought over possession of Kabul, Kamran held the prince on the ramparts of the fort in front of Humayun’s attacking guns. When Akbar arrived in India in 1555, the country was new to him, as was his father’s (short-lived) role as emperor. During the first years of young Akbar’s

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PRE-MUGHAL TRADITIONS

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reign, following Humayun’s death in 1556, much of the administration of the country was in the hands of Bairam Khan, who eventually rebelled against Akbar and his increasing self-reliance (no. 10b). It is probably a mistake to think of Akbar as ever being completely ruled by Bairam Khan, for at that time thirteen was considered a quite capable age for making serious and creative decisions. Detailed knowledge of these early years in Akbar’s reign, however, is meager.

In 1561 Bairam Khan was killed by imperial forces, and the following year Akbar married the daughter of the Hindu raja of Amber (the future Jaipur state), thus establishing a policy of marriage alliances as one tactic to bring the independent Hindu rulers under Mughal control. Akbar was not interested in forcing Islam upon the country. He instated a policy of tribute payments and military service, but he generally allowed the Hindu chiefs to rule their patrimonial lands and continue their own religious beliefs.

By the early 1560s the great Hamzanama project was also well under way—a mammoth undertaking to copy out and illustrate (with fourteen hundred paintings) one of Akbar’s favorite adventure stories (no. 6). According to a contemporary account, more than thirty painters were among the men who worked on the book, and many of them were recruited from local artistic workshops in India, bringing to the Mughal court traditions and attitudes that then became part of the evolving Mughal court style.15 In these early years, Akbar was interested in and supportive of such variety, for Indian forms, colors, and techniques were different and exciting to him. This desire to confront traditional Islamic attitudes (whether artistic, religious, or political) with innovative and challenging concepts from other cultural traditions is basic to understanding Akbar’s early years and the development of the Mughal style in both painting and architecture. The vital intermingling of styles and spaces in the new city at Fatehpur Sikri, for example, built between 1569 and 1585, is an almost exact architectural equivalent for the Hamzanama manuscript.

In 1568 Akbar conquered the Rajput fortress at Chitor, the capital of the rebellious rulers of Mewar, a group of Hindu nobles who refused to ally themselves in any way with the Mughal empire. The following year the fortress at nearby Rinthambhor also capitulated. Prince Salim (the future emperor Jahangir) was born in 1569, followed the next year by Sultan Murad (no. 29), and in 1572 by Sultan Daniyal. At this point Akbar’s political power was unrivaled, and his dynastic succession was guaranteed. It was a time of relative security, consolidation rather than expansion, and intellectual experimentation.

Akbar evidently first met Europeans in 1572 during the campaign in Gujarat, and this considerably expanded his already keen interest in different religious systems.

One of the occurrences . . . was that a large number of Christians came from the port of Goa and its neighbourhood to the foot of the sublime throne and were rewarded with the bliss of an interview. . . . They produced many of the rarities of their country, and the appreciative Khedive received each one of them with special favour and made inquiries about the wonders of Portugal and the manners and customs of Europe. It seems as if he did this from a desire of knowledge, for his sacred heart is a depot of spiritual and physical sciences. But his boding soul wished that these inquiries might be the means of civilizing this savage race.16 This and subsequent encounters were important for the arts, for Akbar saw and was intrigued by European prints and paintings, which his artists studied and copied.

Akbar had never wholly accepted Islam, and in 1575 he established at Fatehpur Sikri the Ibadat Khana (House of worship), where men of different religious persuasions could meet, present their own beliefs, and debate.

At this time, when the capital was illuminated by his glorious advent, H. M. ordered that a house of worship should be built in order to the adornment of the spiritual kingdom. . . . A general proclamation was issued that, on that night of illumination, all orders and sects of mankind—those who searched after spiritual and physical truth, and those of the common public who sought for an awakening, and the inquirers of every sect—should assemble in the precincts of the holy edifice, and bring forward their spiritual experiences, and their degrees of knowledge of the truth in various and contradictory forms in the bridal chamber of manifestation.17 The troublesome province of Bengal was finally conquered in 1576, further and finally solidifying Akbar’s rule. It also ushered in years of intense personal turmoil. Three years later, in 1579, Akbar issued the Decree of Infallibility, giving himself extraordinary powers in the interpretation of Islamic doctrine. He formally invited the Jesuits at Goa to send a mission to the Mughal court.

Order of Jalal-ud-din the Great, King by God appointed. Fathers of the Order of St. Paul, know that I am most kindly disposed towards you. I send Abdulla, my ambassador, and Dominic Pires to ask you in my name to send me two learned priests who should bring with them the chief books of the Law and the Gospel, for I wish to study and learn the Law and

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what is best and most perfect in it. The moment my ambassadors return, let them not hesitate to come with them and let them bring the books of the Law. Know also that so far as I can I shall receive most kindly and honourably the priests who will come. Their arrival will give me the greatest pleasure, and when I shall know about the Law and its perfection what I wish to know, they will be at liberty to return as soon as they like, and I shall not let them go without loading them with honours and gifts. Therefore let them not have the slightest fear to come. I take them under my protection. Fare you well.18 The most important event and culmination of this period of experimentation and questioning occurred, however, during a qamarga (hunt). Both Abu’l Fazl and his contemporary Abdu’l Qadir ibn-i-Muluk Shah, known as al-Badaoni (who is quoted here), refer to it rather obliquely.

At Patan the Emperor . . . went for a Qamurghah hunt in the neighbourhood of Nandanah, and in the course of four days numberless game was enclosed. And when it had almost come about that the two sides of the Qamurghah were come together, suddenly all at once a strange state and strong frenzy came upon the Emperor, and an extraordinary change was manifested in his manner, to such an extent as cannot be accounted for.19 Abu’l Fazl states that “a sublime joy took possession of his bodily frame. The attraction [jazaba] of cognition of God cast its ray.” This direct mystical experience gave Akbar a sense (in Abu’l Fazl’s words) of the “glory of unity,”20 an intuitive synthesis of all the various ideas and religious attitudes that he had been exploring, and it increased his distrust of sectarian differences. The result of this experience was the establishment in 1582 of the Din-i-Ilahi (Divine faith), a synthetic religious system that was violently attacked by orthodox Muslims.

It is no surprise, therefore, that a painter named Daswanth was particularly important to Akbar at this time, although he is a difficult artist to understand.21 Very few works can be attributed solely to his authorship, and those that are known are early and immature. His greatest contribution was the series of immensely powerful designs made for the imperial Razmnama (Book of wars) manuscript begun in 1582. There, his sense of the irrational and visionary must have perfectly complemented Akbar’s similar sensibilities—as shown by the mystical jazaba—during the late 1570s and early 1580s. Daswanth certainly was a dominating influence on the Hamzanama—until he committed suicide in 1584.

One of the occurrences was the death of the painter Daswanth. He was the son of a Kahar [palki- (palanquin-)bearer caste].

The acuteness and appreciativeness of the world’s lord brought his great artistic talents to notice. His paintings were not behind those of Bihzad [the most famous Persian artist] and the painters of China. All at once melancholy took possession of him, and he wounded himself with a dagger. After two days he paid back the loan of life, and grief came to the hearts of connoisseurs.22 With Daswanth’s death and the establishment of the Din-i-Ilahi, Akbar’s own attitude changed for the quieter, the more rational.23 The year 1580 initiated a decade of intense activity. In 1582 Akbar commissioned a new history of the Muslim world during its first millennium, which would end in AH 1000 (1591–92 CE). This was the Tarikh-i-Alfi (History of a thousand; no. 11), and orthodox Muslims were outspoken in their distrust of Akbar’s intentions.

And since, in his Majesty’s opinion, it was a settled fact, that the 1,000 years since the time of the mission of the Prophet (peace be upon Him!), which was to be the period of the continuance of the faith of Islam, were now completed, no hindrance remained to the promulgation of those secret designs, which he nursed in his heart. And so, considering any further respect or regard for the Shaikhs and Ulama (who were unbending and uncompromising) to be unnecessary, he felt at liberty to embark fearlessly on his design of annulling the statutes and ordinances of Islam, and of establishing his own cherished belief (in their stead).24 In the same year, Akbar ordered a translation into Persian of the Sanskrit (Hindu) epic Mahabharata, which became known as Razmnama and was immediately followed by a translation of the Ramayana (for a related manuscript, see no. 11). Badaoni, who worked on the preparation of both texts, was continually horrified by Akbar’s sympathies and by such liberal and non-Muslim attitudes as the prohibition on eating beef. He wrote: The origin of the embargo was this, that from his tender years onwards the Emperor had been much in the company with rascally Hindus, and thence a reverence for the cow (which in their opinion is the cause of the stability of the world) became firmly fixed in his mind.25

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Badaoni more usefully mentions the establishment of the Translation Bureau at Fatehpur Sikri.26 Learned Hindus were brought there to recite and explain texts that then were transcribed into Persian, and books brought to the Ibadat Khana for discussion were prepared there for the emperor’s understanding.

The Record Office, established in 1574, was equally important. Records were extraordinarily thorough, and every event in the emperor’s life was noted by one of fourteen clerks.

Their duty is to write down the orders and the doings of His Majesty and whatever the heads of the departments report; what His Majesty eats and drinks; when he sleeps and when he rises; the etiquette in the state hall; the time His Majesty spends in the Harem; when he goes to the general and private assemblies; the nature of hunting-parties; the slaying of animals; when he marches and when he halts; the acts of His Majesty as the spiritual guide of the nation; vows made to him; what alms he bestows.27 Both the emperor and Abu’l Fazl encouraged the writing of memoirs. On one occasion they supplied a scribe to take dictation from the superintendent of the Imperial Kitchen, who was paralyzed and unable to write.28 These texts were kept in the Record Office, as were important chronicles, including the Baburnama, Qanun-i-Humayuni of Khwandamir, and Tazkiratu’l Waqi’at of Jauhar. The sources available to historians were extensive, and in 1589 Akbar commissioned Abu’l Fazl to use these materials to write an official chronicle of his life, the Akbarnama.

These later manuscript projects slowly developed a quite different character from those of the early years of Akbar’s rule, during which, based on the Tutinama or Hamzanama, for example, the emperor clearly was interested in the legendary and fantastic. This new attitude was perfectly expressed in the introduction to the Tarikh-i-Alfi, in which Asaf Khan Ja’far Beg wrote that the emperor accordingly ordered, that the rational contents of different religions and faiths, should be translated in the language of each, and that the rose garden of the traditional aspects of each religion should, as far as possible, be cleared of the thorns of bigotry. . . . Accordingly, the late Hakim Ahmad was ordered to compile an authentic history based on reliable sources. He was ordered to begin it from the death of the Prophet Muhammad, to verify all the traditions relating to all parts of the world, and bring down the account to the present time. In obedience to the royal mandate, he wrote within three years a detailed history.29 This new interest in the rational and historically verifiable can be partly attributed to Akbar’s greater maturity in the 1580s. The jazaba and the establishment of the Din-i-Ilahi also relieved and formally channeled much of the turmoil of Akbar’s youth and therefore freed him for new and different concerns.

Paralleling the interest in historical events was a preoccupation with historical personalities, which thus led to the development of portraiture. According to Abu’l Fazl, “His majesty himself sat for his likeness, and also ordered the likenesses taken of all the grandees of the realm. An immense album was thus formed: those that have passed away have received a new life, and those who are still alive have immortality promised them.”30 Akbar was particularly radical in this approach to portraiture. Earlier Hindu and Islamic “portraits,” when they exist, are generalized and metaphorical references, whereas Akbar wished his artists to capture the specific appearance and personality of the subjects. In this he went completely against traditional Islamic attitudes, which held that “the painting of a picture of any living thing is strictly forbidden and is one of the greatest sins . . . it is forbidden under every circumstance, because it implies a likeness to the creative activity of God.”31 Akbar, however, thought otherwise, as Abu’l Fazl related.

One day at a private party of friends, His Majesty, who had conferred on several the pleasure of drawing near him, remarked: “There are many that hate painting; but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar means of recognizing God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs, one after the other, must come to feel that he cannot bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the giver of life, and will thus increase in knowledge.”32 The Mughal library and workshops were active, productive, and inventive during these years. Many of the texts had never before been illustrated, and Akbar’s stylistic demands were untraditional. Abu’l Fazl again noted: The number of masterpieces of painting increased with the encouragement given to the art. Persian books, both prose and poetry, were ornamented with pictures, and a very large number of paintings was thus collected. The Story of Hamzah was represented in twelve volumes, and clever painters made the most astonishing illustrations for no less than one thousand four hundred passages of the story. The Chingiznama, the Zafarnama, this book [i.e., Akbarnama], the Razmnama, the Ramayan, the Nal Daman, the Kalilah Damnah, the Ayar Danish, etc., were all illustrated.33

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That there was “a very large number of paintings” seems a justifiable claim. The Razmnama, of those major manuscripts that are known and can be dated to the 1580s, for example, had 176 illustrations. The Ramayana contained more than 170 paintings, the Timurnama 128, the Darabnama 157, the first Baburnama 183, and the first Akbarnama and the Tarikh-i-Alfi each probably held about 300 images. As might be expected, not all works, even among imperial commissions, were of uniformly high quality nor were the styles of individual painters always significant. Artistic experimentation and stylistic development were moving too rapidly to control the quality of all the results. The overall sense, however, is one of enormous energy and creativity, for artists had not yet evolved the techniques and formulas that became basic during and after the 1590s and from which painters then made only minor and subtle personal variations.

The earliest great Akbari manuscript is the Hamzanama (no. 6), which was worked on over a fifteen-year period centered on the decade of the 1560s. The text is a lively adventure story, based loosely and in part on the life of Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, and his attempts to convert the world to Islam. Its kidnappings, seductions, murders, chases, magical journeys, dragons, and giants were immensely appealing to the young Akbar. The Maathir-ul-Umara states he “was very fond of the story of Amir Hamza which contained 360 tales. So much so that in the female apartments he used to recite them like a storyteller.”34 The manuscript is on cloth, a practice that finds precedent in such Indian works as the Jain Vasanta Vilasa scroll (no.

3), village paintings, and Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temple hangings. By Mughal standards the size of the Hamzanama folios is enormous (about 68 by 52 centimeters). This immediately increases the visual impact of the illustrations, as do the large forms, strong colors, and bold rhythms. Unlike the exactly contemporary Iranian Haft awrang (fig. 6), for example, there is no sense here of the subtle and precious, although the love of pattern and ornament is found in both manuscripts (compare figs. 8 and 9). In the Iranian work, gestures are quiet and emotionalism restrained, a reflection

Fig. 6 Quay’s First Glimpse of Laila, from a Haft awrang

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of highly developed court decorum and control, whereas in the pages of the Hamzanama figures gesticulate wildly.

Here, too, facial expressions are strong, and forms are modeled to give them substance. The Iranian painter seems more interested in fine detail, graceful poses, and the extraordinary undulating surface rhythms of the drapery. Grace is not a quality associated with the Hamzanama figures.

If the Haft awrang illustrations are subtle and demand a leisurely investigation to achieve their effect, the Hamzanama is strongest on first impact. In this way, as well as in the overall strength of form and gesture, it is closer in style to the illustrations in the pre-Mughal Hindu Bhagavata Purana (no. 4). Also, as in Indian traditions, the Hamzanama elevates the narrative to the dominant element of the painting. Almost all the painters who were recruited to work on the manuscript were Indian, and many were certainly mature, developed artists before they joined Akbar’s lucrative and prestigious employ. Thus, they brought to the evolving Mughal style attitudes and traditions that were quite different from the Iranian training of the project directors, Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad. In the Hamzanama, Mughal painting shows itself not as a provincial or transplanted version of Iranian painting, as it might easily have become, but Fig. 7 Umar, Disguised as the Surgeon

as a new and vital tradition.

The broad stylistic development of Akbari works can be charted with ease (see figs. 6–8). The superb illustration

Mazmahil, Arrives at the Castle of Antali (detail, no. 6e)

Krishna and the Golden City of Dwarka (no. 7), painted about 1585, comes from a Harivamsa manuscript, a portion of

Fig. 8 Krishna and the Golden City of Dwarka (no. 7)

appears to be relatively three-dimensional, rather than a flat surface design, and single forms, such as the cow-

the Mahabharata that recounts the life of the Hindu god Vishnu. It shows the development of a freer, deeper space than what is found in any related pre-Mughal works. The architecture, for example, is arranged in such a way that it

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herders or the trees, are more skillfully modeled to lend a sense of physical mass within this space. The figures and architecture in the background also diminish in size according to the distance. This trait specifically, as well as the

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modeling, can be derived from a continuing awareness of European techniques. Imported objects from Europe had long circulated throughout the Mughal empire; an early Humayun-period text describes European textiles hanging at the court.35 Akbar was formally given an illustrated Bible by Jesuit missionaries who came to Agra in 1580, and there is evidence that such works had been known much earlier.36 A Jesuit account recorded an imperial visit to their chapel in 1582.

Eight days later, [Akbar] again came to the oratory, accompanied this time by his three sons, and some of the chief nobles of the court. . . . He showed great reverence for the pictures of our Savior and the blessed Virgin and even for those of other saints; and he ordered his painter to make copies of those which the Fathers had placed in their chapel.37 Later Mughal manuscripts, such as the Harivamsa, show a growing concern for naturalism and more precise visual observation—traits that gave European works their novelty and interest—and this awareness becomes the most distinctive contribution of Mughal painting to the arts of either Islam or India. It also, however, reveals a developing taste for technical control, brilliance of surface (seen especially in the Harivamsa in the gold patterning of the buildings), and miniaturism, which reasserts the Iranian roots of Mughal painting and taste. Abu’l Fazl seems to have recognized this dual ideal of the Mughal aesthetic when he wrote in the late 1590s,

Fig. 9 Zardhang Khatni Brings the Key to Maltas, the Prison Keeper (detail, no. 6f) Fig. 10

Most excellent painters are now to be found, and masterpieces worthy of a Bihzad may be placed at the side of the wonderful works of the European painters who have attained world-wide fame. The minuteness in detail, the general finish, the boldness of execution, etc., now observed in pictures, are incomparable; even inanimate objects look as if they had life.38

Akbar Receives News of the Victory of Gogunda (detail, no. 10g)

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This direction is carried further in the second major Akbarnama (no. 10). A comparison of details from Hamzanama and Akbarnama pages (see figs. 9 and 10) also illustrates the rapidity with which Mughal painters shifted from the stock figural types of their Islamic and Hindu heritage to convincingly individualized characterizations.

Important nonstylistic developments also occurred during the Akbar period. The earliest works—other than the Hamzanama—were generally small, with illustrations frequently being less than a full page. By the 1580s folios had usually become larger in size, and full-page illustrations often no longer included panels of text (notable exceptions are the Tarikh-i-Alfi [no. 11] and Jami al-Tawarikh [no. 12]). The great dynastic histories, such as the Timurnama,39 Baburnama (no. 8), or Jami al-Tawarikh, are virtual state documents and consequently are almost ceremonially large and impressive. On occasion, manuscripts changed character as they were made. One example from the second Akbarnama (no. 10a) illustrates an early passage of the text and is less than full page; this soon became the standard format.

By the second volume of the work, the portion now in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, many illustrations expanded to become double pages and extended across both halves of the open book. (Smaller, personal books were also made, probably for the emperor’s private use and delectation.)

While most of the major manuscripts of the 1580s had illustrations designed by one artist and executed by one or more assistants, that system became less satisfactory in the 1590s, when imperial taste was more sophisticated and required uniformly high quality. The major designers were the men listed first in Abu’l Fazl’s important discussion of painters.

More than a hundred painters have become famous masters of the art, while the number of those who approach perfection, or of those who are middling, is very large. This is especially true of the Hindus; their pictures surpass our conception of things. Few, indeed, in the whole world are found equal to them.

Among the forerunners on the high road of art I may mention: Fig. 11 Jahangir Entertains Shah Abbas (detail,

1. Mir Sayyid Ali of Tabriz. He learned the art from his father. From the time of his introduction at Court, the ray of royal favour has shone upon him. He has made himself famous in his art, and has met with much success.

2. Khwaja Abdu s-Samad, styled Shirinqalam, or sweet pen. Though he had learnt the art before he was made a grandee

no. 22b obv)

of the Court, his perfection was mainly due to the wonderful effect of a look of His Majesty, which caused him to turn from that which is form to that which is spirit. From the instruction they received, the Khwaja’s pupils became masters.

3. Daswanth. He is the son of a palkee-bearer. He devoted his whole life to the art, and used, from love of his profession, to draw and paint figures even on walls. One day the eye of His Majesty fell on him; his talent was discovered, and he himself handed over to the Khwaja. In a short time he surpassed all painters and became the first master of the age. Unfortunately, the light of his talents was dimmed by the shadow of madness; he committed suicide. He has left many masterpieces.

4. Basawan. In back grounding, drawing of features, distribution of colours, portrait painting, and several other branches, he is most excellent, so much so that many critics prefer him to Daswanth.

The following painters have likewise attained fame: Kesu [Keshav Das], La‘l, Mukund, Mushkin [Miskin], Farrukh the Qalmaq, Madhu [Madhava], Jagan, Mohesh [Mahesh], Khemkaran, Tara, Sanla [Sanwlah], Haribas, Ram.40 The list seems clearly hierarchical, for—with the exception of Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad—the first six painters are also those assigned the greatest responsibility in manuscript projects. A typical pattern is that of the Jami al-Tawarikh of 1596 (no. 12), executed well after Daswanth’s death and at the very end of Keshav Das’s career. Of the ninety-eight illustrations remaining in the original volume of that work in Tehran, Miskin executed twenty designs, La‘l nineteen, and Basawan sixteen. In the next group, assignments are substantially reduced, for the most important painters are Farrukh with seven designs, Sanwlah with six, and Mukund and Dharm Das each given four. The remaining pages are divided among artists responsible for only one or two folios. Of the assistants who completed the designs, Asi was assigned the greatest number, five; Ram Das was given four; and the remaining artists had three or less. A greater number of painters certainly made up this second rank. The designers usually had a varied group of collaborators, as if this were a way to exercise supervision over—and to train—the large number of artists involved, but the assistants often worked with only one or two master painters. Asi, for example, collaborated on this manuscript exclusively with Miskin, who was his brother. Here, as with many manuscripts, the major portraiture on seventeen different pages was executed

by Madhava, whose assignments clearly show that this was his specialty.

It is worth noting that this system had remained consistent since 1582, with its real instigation with the Razmnama.

There, La‘l executed thirty-eight of the one hundred sixty-seven designs, Basawan thirty-three, Daswanth thirty, and Mukund eleven. This procedure may, of course, have been necessitated by demands for speed and efficiency; major artists working alone could never have executed or worked on so many illustrations.

The mature manuscripts of the Akbar period, through the 1590s, were made by a relatively constant community of artists. This changes somewhat after 1600, with the end of Basawan’s career. The sequentially earlier section of the

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Fig. 12 Hunting Scene, inscribed to Muhammad Sharif

second Akbarnama, one of the last great productions begun under Akbar’s patronage, is still dominated by the “old guard,” for Dharm Das executed at least fourteen pages and La‘l thirteen. A number of names, however, are given new prominence: Balchand, Daulat, Dhanraj, Govardhan, Hiranand, and Manohar, among others. Their works—predominantly for the historically later episodes—are the most innovative. These painters reached maturity under Jahangir;

Fig. 13

they were still young in 1605 and capable of forming their styles in response to Jahangir’s particular demands and

Jamshid Writing on a Rock (no. 20f rev)

aesthetic tastes.

EMPEROR JAHANGIR In 1600 Prince Salim, the future Jahangir (reigned 1605–27; fig. 11), rebelled against his father Akbar and set up an independent court at Allahabad, to the east of Delhi. It was a lavish establishment, and reports of his high living and imperiousness disturbed Akbar.

At this time it was reported by truthful and disinterested persons that the heart of that cypress of fortune’s stream had become excessively addicted to wine. He did not keep his lips from the wine-cup for a moment. When he got habituated to wine, he drank more, but the intoxication was less, so he added opium. . . . At the time when a double intoxication had taken hold of him, and when the brain was dried up, and his disposition unsettled, he for slight offense ordered unfitting, capital punishments. For instance, he had his Recorder flayed alive in his presence. And he castrated one of the pages, and had a khidmatgar [servant] beaten so that he died.41 Salim was thirty-one when he rebelled. His life had been spent at a politically secure and enormously wealthy court, where he had experienced few restraints, and he was impatient to gain the power he had been bred to expect.

His entourage at Allahabad included painters, in particular Aqa Riza, an Iranian émigré, and his young son Abu’l Hasan.

Several known manuscripts can be attributed to these years. The presence of Aqa Riza and his followers gave a particularly Iranian orientation to Salim’s workshops that was quite distinct from the imperial studios.42 Having heard his father was ill, Salim returned to Agra in November 1604, and the following year Akbar died. The prince, who took the titles Jahangir (World Seizer) and Nur-ud-din (Light of the Faith), was the only surviving heir; his two brothers Murad and Daniyal died of alcoholism. Murad in particular had been interested in painting. Several informal portraits of him (e.g., no. 29) must have been made for his personal use. Since this group is attributable to the painter Manohar, it suggests certain artists were patronized consistently by specific members of the imperial family.

The most fascinating document for understanding Jahangir-period painting, and the greatest evidence for the eclecticism and quality of the emperor’s taste, is the album he began even before his years at Allahabad. Five pages (four of which are double-sided) are in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art (nos. 20a–g). When the album was

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intact, it drew from the wide variety of images that aroused Jahangir’s interest, including Deccani, Mughal, Persian, and Turkish paintings and drawings, European prints, and paintings by a European who traveled throughout India. The folios were arranged so paintings were placed on facing pages and alternated with double pages of calligraphy. Two

Fig. 14 Babur at the Capture of Kabul (detail, no. 9)

major groups of album pages remain together, but unfortunately, the folios are not in their original sequence, and many additional pages are scattered among other public and private collections.43 With careful work it is possible to

Fig. 15

establish at least tentative combinations. Jamshid Writing on a Rock (fig. 13), for example, would have faced a hunt-

Akbar Receives News of the Victory

ing scene now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (fig. 12). Both pages have identical borders and are associated with Abd as-Samad—one is ascribed to his son Muhammad Sharif—and the Los Angeles illustration was en-

of Gogunda (detail, no. 10g)

larged in the early seventeenth century to make it the same size as the Freer folio. When placed together, the careful craftsmanship that was applied to the mounting and framing of the paintings and the extraordinarily sumptuous effect that this produced are evident. The marginal designs are decorative for the illustrations (vegetal or floral and bird motifs, as here) and figurative for the calligraphic panels. Among the border figures are copies and adaptations of European prints, along with some of the greatest and most interesting Mughal portraits, including those of nobles, artists, and craftsmen (see figs. 2 and 29).

Such informal studies are a development of the seventeenth century. Few portraits of Akbar are known, other than his official images in the Akbarnama manuscripts, but during the years 1600 to 1605 the overall character of painting changed again—although these years are not yet properly understood. Instead of vast illustrated histories and manuscripts with literally hundreds of illustrations, books became smaller in size, with fewer and finer illustrations that were usually the product of one painter working alone. Even the second Akbarnama, the most elaborate project of these later years, is a far more epicurean, mature, and controlled manuscript than the first copy of the text that was illustrated around 1586–90. Individual portraits and psychological interactions, rather than simple physical activity, are the main focus (compare figs. 14 and 15). Such changes of taste, which Jahangir further refined, seem to have originated in the imperial studios even before his rebellion. His role in directing these changes may therefore have been important.

Like Akbar, Jahangir kept close watch on the work of his painters, and we have already quoted his claims of connoisseurship and his recognition of artists’ personal styles. Beyond this, his memoirs are only peripherally informative about painting during his rule. One important passage mentions two specific artists, Abu’l Hasan (nos. 22a, 24b, 24c, 41) and Mansur (nos. 8d, 24e).

On this date Abu’l-Hasan the artist, who had been awarded the title of Nadiruzzaman [Rarity of the Time], presented a painting he had made for the opening page of the Jahangirnama. Since it was worthy of praise, he was shown limitless favor. Without exaggeration, his work is perfect, and his depiction is a masterpiece of the age. In this era he has no equal or peer. . . . Abu’l-Hasan’s father was Aqa Riza of Herat, who joined my service while I was a prince. Abu’l-Hasan therefore is a khanazad in this court. His work, however, is beyond any comparison in any way to his father’s; they cannot even be

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Fig. 16 Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings (detail, no. 22 rev)

mentioned in the same breath. I have always considered it my duty to give him much patronage, and from his youth until now I have patronized him so that his work has reached the level it has. He is truly a rarity of his age. So is Master Mansur the painter, who enjoys the title of Nadirul’asr [Rarity of the Age]. In painting he is unique in his time. During my father’s reign and mine, there has been and is no one who could be mentioned along with these two.44

Fig. 17 Portrait of James I,

by John de Critz

Mansur is the most famous of Jahangir’s natural history painters. Like Abu’l Hasan, his concern was not for obvious brilliance of pattern or technique; these devices are subservient to the subject. Both artists began their work by accepting the objective reality of their subjects and then exploring their individual forms and characters. Lines and colors seldom assume independent expressiveness but simply become the shapes and textures of the forms to which they refer. Their work culminates the direction of Mughal painting after the death of Daswanth in 1584.

Unlike Akbar, Jahangir commissioned many portraits of himself. Around 1615, however, a new element enters these works. The portraits begin to contain allegorical and symbolic references, such as the globe upon which Jahangir places his feet in a portrait by Abu’l Hasan (no. 24c). At the same time, clear references to English painting are found.

In Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings (no. 22c rev), for example, James I of England (fig. 16) is included among the attendants, and the portrait is directly copied from the work of John de Critz (fig. 17), whose title of Sargent Painter meant he supplied official portraits for the English king, works that would have been sent as ambassadorial gifts. In 1615 Sir Thomas Roe, an English envoy, arrived at the Mughal court, then located at Ajmer. His entertaining memoirs are a prime source for our knowledge of Mughal India. While little is recorded about the gifts Roe presented to Jahangir on behalf of his sovereign, the emperor was childishly eager to receive them. When Roe first arrived, for example, he was too ill to meet immediately with the emperor. He noted: December 31, 1615—This night the king, impatient of my delay and eager on his presents, suspecting that I was not so ill as I pretended, sent a gentellman with a wyld hogg to mee for a Present, which he kylld in hunting; and Chardged him to see mee, so that I was forced to admitt him into my Chamber, wher he saw my weaknes and gaue satisfaction to the king.45 The East India Company, for which Roe was to negotiate trading concessions, had sent very minor gifts, and Jahangir was astonished at their poverty. According to Roe, the emperor asked “whether the Kyng of England was a great Kyng that sent presents of so small valewe.”46 Throughout his time in India, Roe had to ask continually for better quality goods to be sent, including “Pictures of all sortes, if good . . . Diana this yere gave great content.”47 In return, Jahangir presented Roe with his portrait, which apparently returned to Europe with the ambassador.48 Mughal allegorical portraits also seem to base their concepts on general English prototypes. For example, the superb Jahangir Embracing Shah Abbas (fig. 18) appears to be modeled on such general English sources as the “Ditchley” portrait of Elizabeth I (fig. 19) in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In that painting the monarch stands on a globe

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with her back to the storm clouds, as she faces—or ushers in—celestial light. A sonnet inscribed on the right asserts that the sun itself pales beside the radiance of Her Majesty. Jahangir could certainly understand this concept, for he had already written at the beginning of his memoirs, the Jahangirnama,

Fig. 18 Jahangir Embracing Shah Abbas (detail, no. 22 rev)

When I became emperor it occurred to me that I should change my name lest it be confused with the caesars of Anatolia.

Fig. 19

An inspiration from beyond suggested to me that the labor of emperors is world domination (jahangiri), so I named myself

Queen Elizabeth I (Ditchley portrait),

Jahangir and made my honorific Nuruddin [light of religion] because my accession occurred at the time of the rising of the majestic greater luminary, at a time when the world was being illuminated.49

by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

Roe also had pictures of his family and friends (including at least one portrait by the great English miniature painter Isaac Oliver) among his personal possessions. Jahangir demanded to see them.50 Such works were probably the first European paintings (as opposed to prints) of first-rate quality that Jahangir had seen; and in addition to the iconographic innovations they inspired, they changed the Mughal idea of portraiture overall. Before 1615, for example, emperors were usually shown in a narrative context. In this regard, Darbar of Jahangir (no. 33) is somewhat old-fashioned.

After 1615, however, we frequently find majestic figures isolated against lavish symbols of their wealth and power (e.g., no. 22b obv) or with symbolic references to important, if sometimes imagined, events (e.g., no. 24c). These changes correspond with contemporary English tastes and formats.

The major manuscript of the period, worked on from at least 1612 until the end of Jahangir’s reign in 1627, was the illustrated version of the emperor’s memoirs. Only dispersed pages are presently known, and it may be that ultimately they were never placed in a bound copy. Considerable uncertainty also surrounds the dating and authenticity of several possible pages.51 Some of the illustrations intended for the Jahangirnama were among the group of Mughal pictures that were taken to Iran in the mid-eighteenth century and assembled into an album with contemporary Iranian marginal designs.52 Ten pages in the Freer Gallery’s collection originally were intended for this album (nos. 22a–j); among these is a superb Jahangirnama page showing Jahangir Giving Books to Shaykhs (no. 22d obv). Devoted to holy men, both Muslim and Hindu, Jahangir sometimes visited isolated caves to talk with particularly devout ascetics; at other times he brought such men to court. Sir Thomas Roe was astonished by one of these visits.

December 18.—I visited the king. . . . I found him sitting on his throwne, and a beggar at his feet, a poore silly ould man, all ashd, ragged, and Patched, with a young roage attending him. With these kinde of professed Poore holy men the Country aboundes, and are held in great Reuerance. . . . This miserable wretch, clothd in raggs, crowned with feathers, couered with ashes, his Maiestie talked with about an hower, with such familiarity and show of kindnes that it must needed argue an humilitye not found easely among kinges.53

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Fig. 20 Jahangir and Sultan Khurram Entertained

by Nurjahan (detail, no. 35)

Jahangir’s intense interest in people is obvious in the portraits he commissioned. Depictions of himself are often extraordinarily perceptive and reveal his frailties and humanity as well as his splendor. Even the general level of perceptiveness evident in the Jahangirnama page is far more acute, for example, than in similar pages of the second Akbarnama illustrated earlier (compare nos. 10g and 22d obv). Seen in a major portion of the paintings he commissioned after his accession—it is less true of the Allahabad works—is a strong, scientific interest in the appearance and character

Fig. 21a, b A Mongol Chieftain and Attendants (no. 20 rev)

of the natural world. It is not a matter merely of intent and aspiration, as it frequently is in Akbari works, but one of achievement. It is not a purely artistic attitude; it is the fabric of Jahangir’s life. In the Jahangirnama, he recounts various (sometimes outlandish) scientific experiments he conducted. In 1618, for example, he arranged a test to confirm whether the air of Mahmudabad was actually better, as proclaimed, than that of nearby Ahmedabad.

By way of experimentation I ordered a sheep skinned and hung up beside the Kankriya tank and another hung up in Mahmudabad to see what the difference in the air was. The first sheep was hung up after the elapse of seven gharis of the day, and when three gharis remained of daylight it was so putrid and rotten that it was difficult to get near it. By contrast, in Mahmudabad it was hung at dawn, and by evening it was unchanged. It began to spoil only after a watch and a half of the night.

To sum up, the sheep spoiled outside of Ahmadabad after eight hours, while in Mahmudabad it took fourteen.54 On another famous occasion, he ordered Inayat Kahn, a courtier dying of opium addiction, to sit for his portrait before he was allowed to return home to die. As recorded by the emperor, “He was put in a palanquin and brought. He looked incredibly weak and thin . . . his bones had begun to disintegrate. . . . It was so strange I ordered the artists to draw his likeness.”55 Jahangir seems constantly to have been moving—not, like Akbar, on military campaigns, but just to keep himself in touch with his kingdom and to be entertained. In his memoirs he notes when jugglers came to perform for him or when figs arrived from Ahmedabad. He describes the mating of saras cranes and the sweetness of camel’s milk and tells of a man who felled two small trees without permission and was punished by having his thumbs cut off. He states how far he traveled and how long it took him, and he evokes a truly imperial image at such times as his arrival in Ahmedabad in 1618, when “I hastened along scattering money.”56 Paintings recreate this life of extreme opulence. Clothing was made of gold thread or the sheerest gauze; cups and dishes were created of jade, rock crystal, or Chinese porcelain; and imported luxuries were highly coveted. Artists opulently decorated the rooms in which the emperor lived. Jahangir wrote during his visit to Kashmir in 1620: On the twenty-seventh of Khurdad [June 7] the apricots were ripe. Repairs had been ordered on the picture gallery in the garden, and it had recently been painted by the masters of the age. On the upper level was a picture of Jannat-Ashyani

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[Humayun] and His Majesty Arsh-Ashyani [Akbar]. Opposite they had drawn a picture of me and my brother Shah Abbas.

Then there were pictures of Mirza Kamran, Mirza Muhammad-Hakim, Shah-Murad, and Sultan Danyal. On the second level they had made pictures of the amirs and intimate servants. All round the outside they had painted landscapes of the stations along the road to Kashmir in the order by which we had come.57

Fig. 22a, b Calligraphy from the Late Shah Jahan Album, by Mir-Ali al-Sultani

Such a painted pavilion but with different decorations, including a head of the Virgin Mary, is the setting for another work (fig. 20). The woman shown might be an idealized portrait of Nurjahan, the most powerful and important of Jahangir’s wives, who took over much of the governing of the country in the later years of the emperor’s reign, when he had become enfeebled by alcohol and opium. In the seventeenth regnal year (1622–23), he was forced to write in the Jahangirnama, “On account of the illness that came upon me last year and is still with me, I haven’t felt like dealing with writing my memoirs.”58 The remainder of the text, which he had himself kept since his accession, was recorded by Mu’tamad Khan, a courtier and friend.

The final years of Jahangir’s life were deeply affected by the actions of Shah Jahan, who revolted against his father as Jahangir had rebelled against Akbar. After 1619 the two men never again saw each other, and in 1623 Jahangir records that as “the wretch was openly displaying his contemptuousness . . . I ordered him [Shah Jahan] henceforth to be called Bedawlat [the wretch].”59 Jahangir Holding a Globe (no. 24b) shows the emperor as master of the universe, while his armies defeat his son’s troops in that same year.

EMPEROR SHAH JAHAN Prince Khurram, Jahangir’s third son, had been given the title Shah Jahan (King of the World; reigned 1627–57) in 1617, thus placing him above his rebellious elder brother Khusraw, whom Jahangir had earlier blinded, as well as the ineffectual Sultan Parviz. Portraits of Shah Jahan, even those painted during Jahangir’s rule, show him to be a stiff, formal individual. It is highly unlikely that he was ever shown as informally as was his uncle Prince Murad (no. 29), for example.

Shah Jahan was obsessed with imperial splendor. Besides commissioning immaculate portraits of himself and others, he rebuilt much of the palace complex at Agra, replacing the earlier red sandstone buildings with brilliant white marble and eventually constructing a completely new capital, Shahjahanabad (now known to tourists as Old Delhi).

Even more than Akbar, Shah Jahan demanded tangible evidence of his power. The closest Jahangir came to this in the arts is with allegorical portraits, and these tell us more of his worries than of his infallibility.

While a strongly innovative trend characterizes paintings in the Shah Jahan period,60 the majority of the works illustrated here represent the more traditional aspects, such as the continuation of Jahangiri naturalism and, most specifically, portraiture. The superb albums that Shah Jahan formed are the best evidence for this, especially since the production of manuscripts sharply declined. The Kevorkian Album (no. 24), divided between the Metropolitan

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Museum of Art and the Freer Gallery, contains original album leaves from the Jahangir and Shah Jahan periods interspersed with copies made about 1650 and others produced in the early nineteenth century, when the album was assembled. In both this and the Late Shah Jahan Album (no. 21), also assembled around 1650, most of the illustrated

Fig. 23 / opposite and left Shah Jahan with Asaf Khan (detail, no. 21h)

pages are single portraits. Shah Jahan had neither the eclectic taste nor the intellectual voraciousness of Akbar and Jahangir. Portrait of Abd al-Rahim, Khan Khanan by Hashim (no. 24a), one of his greatest artists, is a perfect example

Fig. 24 / center

of the style he preferred: technically faultless, highly perceptive, and painted with alarming self-confidence. Whether

Quatrefoil box.

India, Mughal

figural or vegetal, all the borders are completely different from the impetuous, spirited borders of Jahangir’s albums—

dynasty, ca. 1650

they are, instead, jewel-like, exquisite, and very formal (figs. 21 and 22). The scholar Robert Skelton has attributed the profuse floral designs to the inspiration of imported European herbals.61 Evoking the idea of paradise as a garden, this became the basis for a comprehensive decorative program that dominated textiles, decorative objects, and architecture (figs. 23–25).

Fig. 25 / right Representation of a lotus flower at the Taj Mahal

Cultural liberalness and intellectual curiosity were, however, traits associated with Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest and favorite son, and his intended successor. Murdered by his younger brother Awrangzeb in a bloody war of succession, Dara—like his great-grandfather Akbar—met with and supported important religious figures of the time (no. 37). He sought to understand and reconcile Islam and Hinduism, and this was one cause for his more orthodox brother’s enmity.

EMPEROR AWRANGZEB Taking advantage of his father’s seeming ill-health, Awrangzeb (reigned 1658–1707), the emperor’s third son, through subterfuge and outright dishonesty, seized control of the empire and imprisoned his father in the fort at Agra, where Shah Jahan remained until his death in 1666. Continuing the momentum of established practice, the earliest artistic works made for Awrangzeb are little different from those created for Shah Jahan. Soon, however, the new emperor’s orthodoxy diminished his patronage of the arts. With a reduction of support and resources, a simpler style emerged, one that lessened the distinction between his artists’ work and that made for patrons elsewhere in India. Two facing pages mounted in the St. Petersburg Album, one folio of which is now in the Freer (fig. 40 and no. 22h rev), define this style. Absent from these hunting scenes is the rich variety of vegetation, the spatial overlap of figures and foliage, the interplay of forms intertwined in space, the delight in textures and details, and the references to European imagery that enriched even such tiny scenes as Dara Shikoh Hunting Nilgae (no. 22j). In Two Mughal Princesses Hunting Game Birds (no. 22h rev), the outline of each form is isolated against a plain background, while The Emperor Awrangzeb in a Shaft of Light (fig. 26), however grandiose an image, abandoned the surface opulence that was basic to the fabric of paintings created for both his father and grandfather. The pleasures produced by visual richness and complexity, it seems, were to be avoided during Awrangzeb’s reign.

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RELATED TRADITIONS From the third quarter of the sixteenth century, painting throughout northern India was dominated by the imperial Mughal style, and it became a standard of excellence that other regions and patrons often tried to emulate. Akbar sometimes gave to major nobles copies (occasionally illustrated) of the texts he had translated; this would explain the production of several volumes of the Baburnama, for example. At other times, he urged the nobles to have versions made for themselves. The most famous of this latter group is the Ramayana manuscript included here (no. 14). It was formed over several years around 1600 for Abd al-Rahim, Khan Khanan, whose portrait in the Kevorkian Album is mentioned above. The inspiration for the Ramayana is the imperial copy dated between 1584 and 1589, although the the level of quality varies widely among folios. The earliest pages are generally by artists of imperial (or potentially

Fig. 26 / opposite The Emperor Awrangzeb in a Shaft

imperial) caliber (e.g., no. 14a), but many are painted by far less competent artists. Several of the painters are known

of Light (no. 22g rev)

130 illustrations are new compositions. As might be expected of such an ambitious project for a subimperial patron,

to have worked exclusively for the Khan Khanan (if we can believe contemporary texts), but others were mobile, and some eventually joined Akbar’s studios. Artists trained in the imperial workshops were sometimes hired to produce illustrations for texts in which Akbar had no interest. A ragamala, the most popular of all Hindu illustrated texts, was assembled in 1591 for Rao Bhoj Singh of Bundi, an important Rajput noble within the Mughal system and one with

Fig. 27 Kedar Ragini, perhaps by Shaykh Hatim (detail)

access to imperial circles (fig. 27). He brought three imperially trained artists to Chunar, outside Varanasi, where

Fig. 28

he had been appointed governor by Akbar. Working in a slightly outmoded variant of the imperial style, they eventually

Shri Raga, from the Chawand Ragamala,

by Nasiruddin (detail)

transported that style back to Bundi (in Rajasthan) when the rao returned there. In this way the Mughal style became influential far beyond the imperial capital. On the other hand, painting at the Rajput court of Mewar, resistant to Mughal

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Fig. 29a, b Marginal figures of European women (details, A Chained Elephant, no. 20 obv)

authority, developed out of such pre-Mughal traditions as the circa 1520 Bhagavata Purana (compare fig. 28 and no.

4). In general, subimperial commissions are rougher in execution, less refined in taste, and more receptive to Hindu sensibilities (as in color or strength of visual impact) than were imperial works of the later sixteenth century—and in these differences lies their power.

Muslim courts in the Deccan, south of the Mughal territories, also had important schools of painting that were

Fig. 30 Madonna and Child

perhaps most distinctive before the mid-seventeenth century, when the courts were still relatively independent of

(no. 51)

Mughal control. Deccani rulers had established cultural and economic ties with Iran and Turkey, and conflict with the Mughals was continuous. Painters such as Farrukh Beg (known also as Farrukh Husain) moved between Persian, Mughal, and Deccani patrons (see especially page 205). For example, one work (no. 8a), included in the circa 1589 Baburnama but in a highly Persianized style, was probably painted earlier in Kabul for Akbar’s brother MuhammadHakim, while another (no. 8b), with its precise depiction of an identifiable historical incident, was made by the same artist in India specifically for the same manuscript. The Elephant Atash Khan (no. 50), on the other hand, was a favorite pachyderm of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur. That portrait of a prized animal was executed after Farrukh Beg had moved to that court, an event noted in contemporary historical chronicles. While the aesthetic tastes of patrons differed, for many artists such transitions were not difficult since the range of subjects was similar: Persian poetical texts, copies of European prints, and portraiture. It has often been assumed that the interest in prints was derived from the Mughals, whereas such works certainly could have reached the Deccani courts quite separately. The Madonna and Child (no. 51) perfectly shows the tension between European attitudes towards shading and the traditional Islamic love of intricate, flat surface pattern. The modeling on the Virgin’s face, for example, does little to create a sense of weight, mass, or convincing personality—its usual purpose in Mughal illustrations. Instead it emphasizes surface design (compare figs. 29, 30). This is also true of The Elephant Atash Khan, where the rhythmically arranged lines and textures of the natural forms do not create mass or spatial depth. Here is evidence that the patron’s taste was quite different from that seen in the almost contemporary Mughal animal studies made to illustrate Babur’s memoirs (e.g., no. 8d).

Mughal painting is defined by those works that were created at the central Mughal court—and this could be wherever the peripatetic emperor found himself, whether Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Delhi, somewhere in the Deccan, or at any intermediate stop. Deccani and Rajput paintings, however, as well as those termed subimperial, were created at many smaller courts that were often active rivals to the Mughals. Each had its distinctive cultural identity and established interrelationships. In its heyday, imperial Mughal painting exerted a geographical impact, strongly affecting artistic traditions in regions inhabited by these other courts. Its influence also extended temporally. After the powers of the imperial court weakened, new patrons elsewhere encouraged the continuing historical development of artistic traditions that were first established by the Mughals, as well as the copying of earlier imperial images (nos. 24c, 24e).

The British, for example, wanted images to record for themselves, as well as to demonstrate to others, just what they encountered in India. Commissions for visual documentation of houses, servants, crafts- and trades-people, or

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Fig. 31 Six Recruits (no. 60b)

horses and carriages (nos. 61, 62) often brought to these new patrons the talents of artists who had honed their skills earlier at the Mughal court. The reasons for painting a vampire bat (no. 59) would have been understood by Babur, while Six Recruits (fig. 31) is among the greatest portraits made at any time by an Indian artist. William Fraser commissioned it about 1815 for a series of images of the troops under his command. Each man is identified in an inscription by Fraser, and here—despite the lapse of time—we are not so far from Abu’l Fazl’s note that Akbar “ordered the likenesses taken of all the grandees of the realm. An immense album was thus formed. . . .”62

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ART

The Imperial Image

Paintings for the Mughal Court

Milo Cleveland Beach 232 pages, 264 colour illustrations 9.9 x 12.5” (252 x 318 mm), hc ISBN: 978-81-89995-62-1 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-16-1 (Grantha) ₹3900 | $70 | £46 2012 • World rights