It so happens that this princess possesses a finely carved image whose subject is a mystery to her. Vision immediately recognizes it as a portrait of his master: ... addressing Beauty, he said, 'This is the likeness of a Prince in the West, whose name is Heart, and whose beauty and accomplishments are universally spoken of. Vision having given this description of Heart, Beauty fell violently in love
with him, though she had never seen his person."
Beauty then sends her servant with her ruby seal to bring Heart to her. After many further adventures, the lovers are at length united. In this Akbar period illustration, the portrait of Prince Heart is shown not as a sculpture, as the text describes, but - more in keeping with Mughal tradition as a miniature painting. The elegantly attenuated architecture is a fairy tale version of Akbar's palace city of
Fatehpur Sikri, built in the 1570s. Behind Beauty's gold hexagonal throne are wall-paintings of winged fairies among floral arabesques. Yet the Water of Life is seen flowing in a typical Mughal sandstone watercourse and fountain, and the melon-seller and others outside the gate would have been familiar street figures of Fatehpur or Lahore.
5 St Matthew the Evangelist
Mughal, 1588. By Kesu Das. from an engraving by Philip Galle after Maerten van Heemskerck
Gouache on paper; 18.6 x 11.2 cm Bodleian Library (M5 Douce Or.a.L f.41v.)
Akbar became fascinated by the European pictures,many of them engravings of Christian subjects, which reached his court through traders and Jesuit mission- aries in Goa. His interest was fired as much by their manner as their content. Western naturalistic techniques had a sensational impact on sensibilities attuned to Persian art. Akbar soon encouraged his own artists to imitate and adapt these foreign models. Kesu Das was a prolific copyist of European subjects. He is not accorded first rank status in Abu'l Fazi's account of Akbar's studio - he lacked the flair of a
Basawan (6) - but he is the leading painter of the second rank. His qualities are best seen in St Matthew, remarkable for its accomplished technique and expressive reworking of a religious theme quite alien to a Hindu artist.
The source engraving, after Maerten van Heemskerck, depicts St Matthew writing his Gospel. The attendant angel holds the volume across a knee resting on the Evangelist's thigh. Kesu shows a broad
fidelity to the complex drapery folds in the engraving, with a confident mastery of highlight and shadow; he revels especially in the saint's vivid lapis-blue robe. But the strong characterisation of the original faces is softened, in accordance with Mughal taste. The angel's severe profile becomes a gentler, generalised feminine type seen in three-quarter view, with wing-feathers also more pacifically down-turned. The interaction of the two figures is more restrained and serene. The strong colouring of the costumes is complemented by a setting in muted blue-green tones. The background is extended to conform to the vertical page format. The conventional shore scene in the print is replaced by an Indian lotus lake and forest with a European townscape beyond. The saint's pavilion, with a bookishly opulent interior, is also a hybrid of Mughal
and European forms. The foreground contains flower beds, a cat (common in European subjects by Mughal painters) and exotic ornate vessels; the ewer on the right bears the artist's name and date.
6 The vain dervish rebuked
An illustration to the Baharistan of Jami
Mughal, 1595. By Basawan
Gouache on paper; 19.7 x 12.5 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Elliott 254, f.9r)
On seeing a dervish artfully darning and redarning his ascetic's robe, the learned and saintly Abul Abbas Qassab declared, 'That garment is an idol to you.' This anecdote against vanity comes from a fifteenth-century Persian classic, the Baharistan ('Garden of Spring') of Jami. The illustration, from a splendid manuscript prepared for Akbar at Lahore in 1595, is by Basawan. one of the greatest Mughal painters. Basawan refined his skills through a close study of European methods of modelling and recession, seen here in the interior detailing of the chamber, gateway and windows. But as a true master he used his technique to original expressive effect. He interprets Jarni's story with a subtly worked contrast of the two main figures. The vain dervish, with his dark dress, greyish skin and fingers crooked over his distended, empty robe, appears as though shadowed by worldly attachment. Abu 'l Abbas Qassab, the true Sufi, with his pale, translucent skin and radiant blue robe, speaks with the authority of spiritual illumination. He accompanies the rebuke with a gesture of the left hand, while holding his prayer beads in his right. The setting reveals many delightfully observed details: the gnarled and twisted tree with agile, climbing squirrels; the blithe goats with a suckling kid, beside the flowing well-spring; and, turning its back to the false dervish, the proudly strutting peacock on the palace eaves. Above, a man carrying a net seems to point towards the birds flying and nesting; this may be another comment on human vanity.
7 While lovers meet, the friend is beaten
An illustration to the Baharistan of Jami
Mughal, 1595. By Miskin
Gouache on paper; 24 x 13.5 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Elliott 254, f.42v.)
In this tale from the Baharistan, the illicit lovers Ashtar and Jayida, who were of different tribes, contrive to meet by night outside her camp. Ashtar's loyal friend, disguised in Jayidas clothes, takes her place in her husband's tent. When the husband comes to offer milk to his supposed wife, the friend acts coquettishly and spills it. The husband then beats him furiously until the mother and sister of Jayida intervene, as shown here. However, the friend's imposture remains undetected and he has
the consolation of spending the rest of the night with Jayida's sister. The moral, says Jarni. is that in the hour of need a true friend is indispensable. The nocturnal landscape is treated by Miskin with a deep and subtle palette, influenced by European chiaroscuro effects. The complex composition retains the high viewpoint of Persian painting, disclosing a succession of skilfully integrated and sensitively observed scenes, especially of animal life, at which Miskin excelled. The adulterous drama is an interlude in a natural idyll, both serene and mysterious. The furtive looking couple at their tryst are flanked by somnolent riding-camels and, further off, by restlessly plunging horses. Among the bulbous tents with their billowing drapes are various dozing sheep and goats and a tenderly observed cow and calf with a herdsman, based on a European model. All except the dog ignore the commotion outside the irate husband's tent. The tent itself is alive with brocaded scenes of birds and a leopard chasing deer, while Miskin's artful rock formations (recalling both Flemish and Persian example) sprout concealed grotesque faces.
Mughal school, 1600. By Abu'I Hasan, after an
engraving of the Crucifixion by Albrecht Durer of 1511
Brush drawing with light tinting on paper; 10 x 4.6 cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1978.2597; Gift of Gerald Reitlingcr)
This small but powerful brush-drawing of the figure of 5t John from a Durer engraving (fig. 2) is the earliest known work by Abu 'I Hasan (fig. 3), one of the most gifted artists working for Prince Salim, later the emperor Jahangir (1605-27). Eighteen years later Jahangir was to write of him, 'At the present time he has no rival or equal. .. From the earliest days I have always looked after him, till his art has arrived at this rank. Truly he has become Nadir-i Zaman ('The Wonder of the Age').'
The drawing of St John was executed in 1600, when Abu'l Hasan was only twelve. Together with his father, the Persian artist Aqa Riza. he was already in the service of Prince Salim, then in revolt against his father Akbar and residing at Allahabad. His version of Durer's saint may have originated as a copyist's exercise, but the result is more a reinterpretation. He had clearly already mastered the techniques adapted by earlier Mughal painters from European prints. Despite occasional tentativeness in his brush-drawing, he confidently suggests volume through outline and shaded modelling, skilfully translating the great German engraver's linear hatching into the painterly medium of wash. The Evangelist's draped figure consequently has a delicate quality which brings into stronger relief his youthful, anguished face among serpentine curls. This look of disquiet is different in kind from the expression of conventional grief seen in Durer's figure, with its up-turned gaze and more acute tilt of the head. By uniting these qualities of naturalism and psychological insight, Abu'l Hasan became within a few years the foremost portraitist at the Mughal court.
