Mughal, c.1638
Gouache with gold on paper; 24.2 x 14.3 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.a.1, f.9r)
Under the Emperor Jahangir Mughal portraiture reached its zenith, not only in the dispassionate recording of human individuality (9) but as a means of imperial self-aggrandisement. Under Shah Jahan (1627-58) this propagandist strain became dominant. Here he is symbolically shown as World Ruler (as his name signiAes). Seated on an ornate throne, probably at Agra Fort, he holds a jewelled lance and an orb representing heaven and earth. Such ceremonial enthronements were part of
the elaborate court ritual. In October 1637 the tenth anniversary of Shah Jahan's accession was celebrated: In commemoration of the occasion, the King of the seven climes proceeded with God-given fortune to the Forty- Pillared Hall of Public Audience and ascended the Jewelled Throne. According to the yearly custom, gold and pearls were lavishly distributed from his munificent hands, and fell upon his obedient subjects like auspicious rays from the all-powerful sun.'
Immersed in sumptuously coloured and patterned surfaces, the Emperor assumes iconic status. His face in profile is rendered with great finesse in the stippling of flesh and treatment of the slightly greying hair and beard. His radiant solar nimbus stands out from the golden throne-back through the artist's textured striation and stippling of the gold surfaces. The jeweled throne, with pearl-fringed canopy, displays European baroque features such as its foliated scrolling wings. The throne cushions, carpet and the Emperor's surcoat, robe and sash are an opulent mass of floral ornament. The natural flowers set against the green background are arranged with similar formality in this apotheosis of imperial grandeur.
Mughal, c.1640. Attributed to Payag
Gouache with gold on paper; 34.5 x 23.8 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Ouseley Add. 173, no. 13)
In November 1638 Shah Jahan received with honour at Lahore the Persian general 'Ali Mardan Khan, who had helpfully surrendered to him the strategic frontier city of Qandahar. 'Ali Mardan Khan was rewarded with the governorship of Kashmir. He later rendered outstanding service as a designer of gardens, canals and other public works. In this durbar scene the Persian nobleman appears among the throng of courtiers on the left, wearing a splendid flowered robe and saluting the Emperor with hand raised to his forehead. In keeping with the protocol of the time (so different from the informality of
early Mughal court scenes, 2), the figures appear frozen in a tableau, depending hierarchically from the majestic figure of the ruler. Each is an acutely observed portrait. Attributable to the gifted and versatile artist Payag, this composition closely resembles the durbar scenes of the Padshahnama, the illustrated history of Shah Jahan's reign now in the Royal Library at Windsor, and was probably intended for that manuscript.
Muqhal. c.1655
Gouache with gold on paper; 40.5 x 28.8 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.3, no.21)
Sa'dullah Khan, the able and learned prime minister of Shah Jahan, presides over a durbar assembly on an open terrace. Enthroned under smaller and greater canopies, he gives orders or judgements to the officers ranked before him. A state elephant and caparisoned horses await the minister and grandees in front of the partition railing. To the fore of the crush of attendant figures on the left are two Europeans in ruffs and black hats.
Shah Jahan prized his loyal minister and deeply mourned his death in 1656, two years before his own
dethronement by his son Aurangzeb. This painting of Sadullah Khan shows him as the authoritative executive of the Emperor's will, with the entourage and panoply appropriate to his office. The Mughal state machine is seen in smooth and ruthless action. The over-arching canopy strikes a grandiloquent note with its gold brocade interior with flowering scrollwork, the latter amplified above in the less disciplined, more ominous rhythms of the tightly bunched cloud curlicues.
Mughal, c.1640-50
Gouache with gold on paper; 17.2 x 11.5 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.a.1, f.45v)
In the more introspective mode of Mughal painting (2), princes are shown withdrawn from the tumult of the hunting, war and court ceremonial, absorbed instead in solitary contemplation with a book, flower or wine-cup in secluded gardens, in the society of a favourite concubine, or else in solemn spiritual discussion with grey- beard shaikhs.
In this painting a young prince of refined sensibility sits on a high-backed chair among flowering shrubs and slender trees. Wine-flasks and cups and a vase of flowers stand within reach. He is lost in reverie as he smells a narcissus; in Persian poetry narcissi are associated both with the spring and with the languorous eyes of the beloved. The subject, setting, and palette recall the Persianate aestheticism found in earlier Deccani painting and in the work of the artists Farrukh Beg and Muhammad 'Ali. A contrasting note of agitation is struck by the Mughal hunting carpet with a leopard pursuing blackbuck, which seems to wheel about the flower-vase.
Gouache with gold and silver on paper;
12.5 x 9.8 cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1960.203)
As Mughal domination of the Deccan increased during the seventeenth century, imperial conventions of portraiture (13) became influential in the now tributary Sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur. The local artists tended to reinterpret these models with a subtle richness of colour and a poetic, often languorous, quality that is typically Deccani. The youthful Sultan 'Abdullah Qutubshah (r. 1626-72) had been compelled to accept Mughal sovereignty in 1636. In a painting of slightly later date, he is shown seated formally on a low throne set on a terrace with an attenuated garden beyond. He displays a radiant nimbus of Mughal type, while his hand rests martially on his sword-hilt. In reality' Abdullah was indolent and ineffectual: 'all his time was given to ingenious forms of sensuality' (Sir Jadunath Sarkar). His administration was run by his mother. The Sultan's character is conveyed less by the sword and nimbus than by the refined modeling of his dreamy, thick-lipped countenance, combined with the decorative splendor of his flowered gold robe.
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; detail
17 x 12 cm. approx
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1994.46)
The Rajput prince Ram Singh of Amber (b.1635) performs his devotions in a garden setting. Bare-chested and with hair tied back, he recites invocations or mantras with the aid of prayer-beads held under the end of his muslin shawl. Ablution vessels are placed before him, with a conch-shell on a stand and brass stamps and sandal-paste for imprinting sectarian marks. The small raised platform on which he sits is set at an unusually oblique angle to the background, with its blossoming trees and massed clouds. The clouds were partly repainted when the picture (which had been trimmed)
was enlarged by a less skilful artist, before being mounted in its album page (fig. 7). While the sensitive portraiture, with fine stippled shading of the face and torso, indicates that the artist had received Mughal training, the freer interpretation of the setting suggests this may be an early work of the local Amber (later, Jaipur) school. am Singh is reputed to have been a devout Hindu and less happy than his predecessors in his required attendance at the Mughal court under Aurangzeb. He earned the lasting displeasure of the Emperor, who suspected him of complicity in the escape of the Maratha leader Shivaji from Agra. When Ram Singh became ruler of Amber in 1667, Aurangzeb sent him off to govern the remote and unhealthy border region of Assam in the north-east. But he survived this. Further postings followed on the north-western Khyber frontier, where Ram Singh died in 1688.
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