INDIAN PAINTING 1500-1575

J.P. Losty 2011

The period under review is one of great change. From the first half of the period there is a
small of number of manuscripts with date and provenance and a somewhat larger number of
ones without either. The Jain or Western Indian style continues with minor adjustments in its
traditional, conservative way, with some Hindu manuscripts painted in a similar style. The
major development, however, is seen in a small group of Hindu manuscripts in a style best
called the Early Rajput style, all apart from two of hotly-disputed date and provenance. In
Sultanate painting, dependence on provincial Persian styles is lessened with the development
of more indigenous styles with dated examples from Mandu and Bengal and undated ones
from elsewhere.1 In the Deccan, although dependence on Persian styles continues at
Golconda, the beginnings of independent styles are seen at Ahmadnagar and Bijapur.
Finally, with the establishment in the mid-century of the Mughal studio that sucked in artists
from all over India, the way is cleared for the production of large numbers of manuscripts in a
new eclectic style. Apart from the evidence of the manuscripts themselves, there are several
historical accounts of relevance to early Mughal painting, although their evidence is often
contradictory and needs careful analysis.
Despite textual and other evidence for the widespread production of wall paintings during the
period, both religious and secular, little remains.2 There are vestiges of wall paintings in
palaces at Gwalior ca. 1500 and Chitor slightly later in a vigorously decorative style and also
at Fatehpur Sikri ca. 1575.3 Texts and miniatures in manuscripts both suggest palace
chambers were covered with such paintings.4 The late Vijayanagar period temple at Lepakshi
in Andhra Pradesh offers the best surviving evidence of contemporary Hindu religious wall
painting, illustrating scenes from epics and Puranas as well as portraits of the founders of the
temple and womenfolk in contemporary dress.5
A very large number of illustrated Jain manuscripts of the Kalpastra recounting the lives of
the Jinas and of the Klakcryakath (stories connected with the various Klakas) survive
from the period 1400-1550. The Jain style with its angular line had crystallised into a
stereotyped iconography in manuscripts of these texts from Gujarat and Rajasthan before our
period and they continued to be produced throughout it.6 The figures are painted in gold
against backgrounds of solid red or ultramarine with details picked out in other colours. The
last progressive Jain manuscript of these texts is right at the beginning of our period about
1500 (the Kalpastra and Klakcryakath probably from Broach, once in the Devaseno
Pda Bhandr, Gujarat, undated and now dispersed). While the narrative images of the
Kalpastra are richly coloured but stereotyped, with the familiar distortions of projecting
By Sultanate here is meant all painting done for Muslim patrons in India, regardless of style or status. See
Losty 1982, 40-41, for further discussion on nomenclature.

See Digby 1967 for the literary evidence.

For Gwalior and Chitor see Topsfield 2002, 37-41, and for Fatehpur Sikri see Beach 1987, 77.

Losty 1982, 52.

Sivaramamurti, 1968, 106-120.

See Chandra, M., 1949, for the best overview of Jain manuscript painting.

further eye and chest, the narratives paintings of the Klakcryakath and the border
decorations include lively figures culled from Rgaml imagery and Persian or (more likely)
Sultanate painting.7
The first stirrings of change in royal patronage in Sultanate painting are found in the
Nimatnma (Book of Delights), a unique manuscript of a royal recipe book from Mandu
datable 1495-1505 (British Library) that was begun under Sultan Ghiyth al-Dn Khalj
(1469-1500) and continued under his son Nsir al-Dn (1500-1510).8 Various types of
figures are represented therein. The basic Persian style is that of Timurid Shiraz, a style that
was no doubt introduced into Mandu by the artist who illustrated the Mifth al-Fuzal (a
lectionary of rare words in poetry by Muhammad Shdiybd) about 1490 (British Library).9
His style is taken up by at least two Indian artists in the Nimatnma, who show the Sultan
Ghiyth al-Dn supervising the preparation of his favourite recipes for food and drink,
perfumes, betel chews and aphrodisiacs, within buildings suggestive of Mandu architecture.
The Sultan is normally shown in every painting, sometimes in three-quarter view as in
Persian painting, and sometimes in full profile. Conventions differ for the depiction of the
innumerable women with whom the Sultan surrounded himself. Muslim ladies are shown in
the Persian manner, but Indian ones are shown in full profile. These ladies exhibit in their
profiles and dress characteristics that can also be found in Sultanate and Hindu manuscripts
normally thought of as later in the sixteenth century.10 Two other manuscripts from Mandu
also commissioned by Sultan Nsir al-Dn show different stylistic models. A Bstn
(Flower-garden) of Sad is datable 1500-1503 (National Museum, New Delhi). 11 It was
illustrated by at least two artists, one of whom signs himself Haj Mahmd at Mandu. The
artists are following, at a considerable distance, the Timurid style of Herat under the great
Bihzd. An Ajib as-Sani (a Persian translation by Shdiybd of al-Jazars classic work
on automata) is datable 1509 (British Library) and like all such manuscripts copies the
illustrations from its exemplar.12 It also has some new ideas on figural representation that,
like much else from Mandu, bore fruit later in the Deccan.
Painters at Mandu drew on a variety of recent traditions to inform their work. The influence
from Shiraz is more remote in the case of the only other definitely identified Sultanate court
style, that of Bengal. In a manuscript of Nizms Iskandarnma (British Library), copied in
1531-1532 for Sultan Nusrat Shh of Bengal (1519-1532), the three-quarter view tradition of
portraiture from Iran still survives.13 In most other respects the style is entirely Indian.
Figures are normally placed in rows in front of flat decorative backdrops of buildings
reminiscent of those of Gaur, or of monochrome grounds with brilliant multi-coloured clouds
and gold skies above.
7

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, 29-43, who date the manuscript to ca. 1475, but refer to similar manuscripts
dated 1472 and 1501.
8

Skelton 1959; Titley 2005.

Titley 1964-1965.

10

Losty 1982, 67.

11

Ettinghausen 1959; Losty 1982, 67-68.

12

Losty 1982, 68.

13

Skelton 1978.

Although earlier manuscripts modelled on those from Shiraz had used landscape and the high
viewpoint in the Persian way, those illustrated in a more Indian manner in our period did not,
but rather retained their strict horizontality of viewpoint derived from earlier Indian styles. In
the Nimatnma and Iskandarnma Indian artists for the first time occasionally use the high
horizon more constructively, i.e. in order to suggest the spatial relationships between their
figures. They were obviously not very happy about it, since wherever possible they have
their figures standing on a base line or piece of architecture in order to avoid the appearance
of having them float in space, as it must have seemed to them, in the Persian manner. This
remained a characteristic of Indianised Sultanate painting throughout this period.
Two of the most important undated and unprovenanced Sultanate manuscripts of the period
are both of the same text, the Candyana of Mauln Dd, a romance written in 1389 in
Avadhi or eastern Hindi. This is an Indian language written in the Perso-Arabic script. In the
earlier of the two manuscripts (Maharaja Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai,
and dispersed) the silhouetted figures with profile heads of the Nimatnma reoccur, but this
time always standing on bases in front of a decorative background, either of schematic
architecture or a ground with a high curving horizon.14 The decorative architecture and
landscape and the intensity of the emotions portrayed therein make this one of the most
beautiful and sophisticated of Sultanate manuscripts. The second manuscript (John Rylands
Library, Manchester) is very probably a continuation of the same tradition some twenty years
later.15 Both these manuscripts exemplify a very different approach to manuscript illustration
from that introduced into India from Iran in that every single folio bears a painting. The
density of narrative illustration is such that the text has become superfluous, a feature that is
also found in earlier manuscripts of this text as well as in the Hindu manuscripts next to be
discussed. This is a development necessitated possibly both by general illiteracy as well as
by the number of different languages and scripts flourishing throughout India.
The small band of Indian scholars who originally published these and other otherwise
unprovenanced Sultanate manuscripts tends to place their origin, as well as the two fifteenth
century ones of the same text and format but in disparate styles, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, or
more precisely in Jaunpur, the nearest important Sultanate, on the basis of the language.16
Since it can be argued that the Indian manuscript tradition developed the format with
illustrations on every page precisely to overcome the handicap of not being able to read the
text, this is not necessarily very convincing. Northern India around Delhi has also been
proposed for them, but without any argument as to their patron.17 Our two manuscripts are
demonstrably the product of a courtly milieu which Jaunpur no longer necessarily had, since
in 1479 it was permanently annexed by the Sultans of Delhi. It is highly unlikely that the
Mughals Bbur and Hmyn, the Timurid successors to the Lodi dynasty as rulers of Delhi,
would have countenanced such a production. The Mumbai manuscript is perhaps best seen
as a later development of the Mandu school around 1530-1540, while the Manchester

14

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, 94-99; Chandra, P., 1976, 48-49; Losty 1982, 69.

15

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, 99-103; Losty 1982, 69-70.

16

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, passim.

17

Chandra, P., 1976, 48-49.

manuscript would then date from the time of the last Sultan of Mandu, the hedonistic Baz
Bahadur (1555-1562).18
The Hindu style of the first half of the sixteenth century is known under various stylistic
names.19 The recently proposed nomenclature of the Early Rajput style is here adopted.20
The revolution of the head towards the full profile, begun in the Jain or Western Indian style,
is now complete, and the projecting eye is dropped, but the upper body remains facing the
viewer with the hips and legs swivelled round facing the same direction as the head. Men
and women wear attractively stylised garments with floating projecting ends. As with the
Sultanate manuscripts in Persian and Avadhi, the style is linear and the viewpoint is strictly
horizontal with no possibility of depth. The style was later to flourish and sub-divide within
the various Rajput court styles in the seventeenth century, but in the sixteenth century seems
to have had no geographical limitations and to have been used widely across northern India.
It first surfaces unequivocally in a pair of illustrated book-covers from north Bihar dated
1491 (British Library)21 and is found in two other dated manuscripts, an Aranyakaparvan
(Forest-book) from the great epic the Mahabharata (Asiatic Society, Mumbai) dated 1516
from the neighbourhood of Agra22 and a Devimahatmya from the Punjab Hills (Simla
Museum) with a disputed date either in the mid-fifteenth century or in the third quarter of the
sixteenth century.23 The dated manuscripts are of great importance but unfortunately not of
much help in elucidating the provenance and date of the masterpieces of the style, since they
are all to some degree bourgeois or provincial creations. Even more bourgeois are various
Jain manuscripts dated in the sixteenth century from various centres. All these manuscripts
are in the traditional loose leaf or pothi format of Indian manuscripts, with each folio wider
than it is high.
Certainly the most classically beautiful of the major manuscripts in the style is the
Caurapacsik or Fifty Verses of a Love-Thief (mostly N.C. Mehta collection,
Ahmadabad), although somewhat restricted as to its compositions by the repetitive nature of
the text.24 The line defines the silhouetted body, with the heads in strict profile, and the
characters thus defined, Bilhana and his beloved Champvati and some maidservants, act out
their roles in almost theatrical splendour in front of a coloured neutral ground. Almost every
page shows the poet Bilhana conversing with his royal mistress within the confines of her
pavilion, while in the accompanying verse inscribed above he remembers their nights
together and laments his imminent execution for aspiring so high. For the first time in Indian
manuscript painting, we are able to sense the underlying rasa, in this case sringra, the erotic
aesthetic mood, made possible by the manuscripts representing the culmination of the
technical revolution of turning the head around to full profile so that characters can interact
with one another and evoke the appropriate aesthetic response.
18

Losty 1982, 69. Beach 1992, 23, supports this provenance for the Mumbai manuscript.

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969 prefer the Caurapacsik group named after the key manuscript or the
kulhdar group after the type of turban seen in the paintings.

19

20

See Topsfield 2002, 21, and fn 5, for a discussion of the nomenclature.

21

Losty 1977.

22

Khandalavala and Chandra 1974.

23

Losty 1982, 50-51; Gosvamy, Ohri and Singh 1985; Gosvamy and Fischer 1997, 15-27.

24

Shiveshwarkar 1967; Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, 79-83; Topsfield 2002, 27-29.

A much larger series (possibly 360 in all, originally) of paintings from the tenth book of the
Bhgavata Purna, now widely dispersed, is much livelier in composition as befits the nature
of the text dealing with the young Krishna, with varied landscape and architectural
backgrounds. 25 It sometimes makes use of registers instead of expanding the compositional
field. A dozen paintings only survive from a series of the Gtagovinda (Maharaja Chhatrapati
Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai) with slightly different figural stylisations and with
wonderful evocations of landscapes.26 All these manuscripts are of course in Sanskrit. From
the same studio as the Caurapacsik is a manuscript in Avadhi of the Candyana (Lahore
and Chandigarh Museums).27 This is in an upright format with the text in Perso-Arabic script
and again like the Bhgavata Purna needs to adopt separate registers in order to cover the
page.
Opinions differ sharply as to the place of execution and date of all of these manuscripts.
Most Indian scholars have tended to ignore the differences in quality between what appears to
be the aristocratic nature of the major manuscripts and the more provincial ones with dates
and provenances.28 They place them all together in what they term the Delhi-Jaunpur belt
on the basis of the Agra or Delhi origin of two of the provincial manuscripts and the language
of the Candyana. Western scholars tend to differentiate between the aristocratic
manuscripts and the provincial ones and link the former to the Rajput courts of Gwalior and
Chitor, not so much because there are traces of related wall paintings in the palaces there but
because the artistic and literary nature of these courts alone makes them suitable to be the
patrons of such work.29 There is also a demonstrable link between these manuscripts,
particularly the Gtagovinda, and the earliest dated Mewar painting cycle, the 1605
Rgaml. Indian scholars tend to date them all indifferently 1525-1570, whereas western
scholars adopt a more nuanced approach and place the Bhgavata Purna 1525-1550, the
others ca. 1550 and the Gtagovinda as the last of the series 1550-1560. These dates are,
however, later than the dates of the most likely patrons, i.e. Raja Man Singh Tomar of
Gwalior (1486-1517) and Rana Sanga of Mewar (1509-1527). The present writer has argued
that with so many manuscripts of the later fifteenth century displaying features found in this
group that an earlier dating sequence is entirely possible, but this view has not found
widespread acceptance.30
Although attempts have been made to link certain of the more Persianate Sultanate
manuscripts of the fifteenth century to the Deccan, the first incontrovertible evidence of such
manuscript production is not found until the next century. Golconda supported a manuscript
studio producing work based on various Persian styles derived from Herat, Shiraz, Bokhara

25

Khandalavala and Mittal 1974; Topsfield 2002, 32-34.

26

Khandalavala and Mittal 1953-54; Topsfield 2002, 34-35.

27

Khandalavala and Chandra 1969, figs. 188-195; Topsfield 2002, 30-31.

28

See Losty 1982, 49-50, and Topsfield 2002, 35-36 and fn 122, for arguments for an aristocratic provenance
for the major manuscripts of the series.
29
30

Topsfield 2002, 36-42.

Losty 1982, 49-51. See also Chandra, P., 1976, 37-40, for a more nuanced view by an Indian scholar, also
allowing the possibility of an earlier dating.

and Tabriz that first surfaces after the middle of the century.31 Ahmadnagar and Bijapur also
supported such studios but they worked in a much more indigenous style. A historical
manuscript, Tarkh-i Husayn Shh (ca. 1565) (Bharat Itihas Samshodak Mandal, Pune),
chronicles the triumph of Husayn Shh of Ahmadnagar, along with the other Deccan Sultans,
over the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar in 1565 at Talikota.32 Commissioned by the
eponymous Husayn Nizam Shh (1553-1565), it is illustrated ironically in a style that seems
derived from that of its fallen enemy and is linked to that of the Early Rajput style of the
north. At Bijapur the earliest document, the encyclopaedic Nujm al-Ulm (Stars of the
Sciences) of 1570 (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin), likewise owes much to the same lost
Hindu source. It appears to be a royal production for Al dil Shh (1557-1579).33 Now
generally agreed to be of sixteenth century Deccani inspiration is a beautiful Ysuf u
Zulaykh (British Library) that was once thought of as provincial Safavid but now finds a
much more logical home in the Deccan.34 Like the more northerly Sultanate manuscripts, it
adapts Persian landscape conventions to the normal Indian horizontal viewpoint.
When Bbur, a descendant of Tmr, defeated Ibrhm Lod Sultan of Delhi (1517-1526) at
Panipat in 1526, he added the Delhi dominions to his empire which now stretched from
Jaunpur through the Punjab into Afghanistan and Central Asia. There is no evidence yet that
he patronised artists, although as a cultured Timurid he would have done so if the opportunity
arose, but he died four years after his invasion. As for his son Hmyn (1530-1540, 15551556), there is little evidence regarding his patronage of painting in the first ten years of his
reign, although as with his father his love of books is well attested.35 In exile after he was
driven out of India by the resourceful Afghan leader Sher Shh Sr, he sought the help of
Shh Tahmsp (1524-1576) at Tabriz in 1544 for the recovery of his lost kingdom. He was
exposed there to the work of the master artists of the court manuscript studio. The Shh
helped him to recover Kabul in 1545 from his rebellious brother Kmrn and he established
his court in that city.
From then on there emerges evidence of his patronage of artists, in particular some of the
earliest pages in the Gulshan Album (Gulistan Palace Library, Tehran) portraying him and his
young son Akbar.36 These were painted by Abd as-Samad, one of the two artists along with
Mr Sayyid Al whom Hmyn had asked Shh Tahmsp to be allowed to join his court,
which they did in 1549.37 Two other Safavid artists, Mulla Dost and Mr Musavvir, may also
31

Zebrowski 1983, 155-157; Losty 1982, 70-73, and 1995, 297-302. Illustrated manuscripts are in the
Khudabakhsh Library, Patna (dated 1569), the British Library (c. 1575) and the Victoria and Albert Museum
(dated 1582).
32

Zebrowski 1983, 17-18.

33

Leach, L.Y. 1995, 819-889. Related in date and style is a small manuscript (British Library) on the
musical rgas and dramatic hand-gestures (Losty 1983).
34

Titley 1984, 182-183, was the first to publish it as Indian but prefers a Bengali provenance prior to the
Iskandarnma of Nusrat Shh of 1531-1532; see Losty 1986, nos. 7 and 11.
35

En route to Iran in 1540, he is recorded as having had a painter with him to take the likeness of a beautiful
bird that caught his fancy see Beach 1992, 15.

36
37

For example Beach 1987, fig. 1.

Melikian-Chirvani (in Das, ed., 1998, 30-51) followed by Stronge 2002, 12, argues that they arrived actually
in 1552. Only one painting done by Abd as-Samad for the Safavid ruler has been attributed (Seyller 2002, no.

have joined them there although whether they actually reached India is disputed. Also almost
certainly begun in Kabul ca. 1555 is the large painting on cloth now known as Hmyns
Garden Party, showing Hmyn entertaining his court, which has also been attributed to
Abd as-Samad.38 All of this work is still almost entirely Safavid in character, i.e. flat and
highly decorative with similarly sized figures spread throughout the page. Mr Sayyid Al
was one of the junior artists working on the Khamsa of Nzm produced for Shh Tahmsp
in 1539-1543 (British Library), which Hmyn presumably saw when he visited Shh
Tahmsp in 1544.39 Two portraits by him also date from Hmyns time, probably after his
return to Delhi: those of an elderly Indian gentleman sometimes taken to be his father Mr
Musavvir (Muse Guimet, Paris) and a young scribe (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).40
These begin to assume a sense of volume and weight that is associated with Mughal work
under Akbar. Other work from the so-called Fitzwilliam Album possibly begun at this time
seems more of Bokaran inspiration (possibly via Sultanate India) than Safavid.41
Hmyn returned to India from his base in Kabul in 1555 and re-established control over his
fathers dominions, but was killed six months later in a fall down the steps of his library in
Delhi. The throne was assumed by his thirteen year old son Akbar (1556-1605). Within a
short period after his accession, Akbar had begun the incorporation of the separate kingdoms
of northern India into his empire: Malwa in 1562, the Rajput states in 1561-1569, Gujarat in
1572-1573 and Bengal in 1576. This programme of conquest also gave him access to some
of the most flourishing areas of Indian culture, both Hindu and Muslim, and hence to artists
displaced from their native courts by Akbars aggression. The manuscript of the Ttnma
(mostly Cleveland Museum), for instance, was once thought of as showing the very birth of
Mughal painting out of earlier styles.42 It was then discovered that half of the manuscript was
originally painted in a style linked to the Mumbai Candyana series, but was overpainted and
the cycle of paintings completed in the Mughal studio.43 The date of this completion is
probably in the period 1565-1570. This is immediately after the conquest of Malwa and the
sack of its capital Mandu, from where the original unfinished manuscript may very well have
been taken to Agra, since its style is linked to the Candyana manuscripts which we have
suggested above also come from Mandu. Other features in this manuscript, particularly one
of the female types, are linked to the Early Rajput group, none of which postdates 1560.
Akbar had been interested in painting from an early date and is recorded as having been
taught to paint by Abd as-Samad and Mr Sayyid Al themselves.44 There are several
2, following S.C. Welch). Other Safavid artists recorded as being with Hmyn in Kabul are known only by
name (Chandra, P., 1976, 15-26).
38

Canby 1994.

39

Often published, but see Welch 1979.

40

Often published, but see Canby, ed., 2002, 15 and 17, and Seyller 2002, nos. 6a and 7.

41

Beach 1987, 17-21. Only a painting identified by Beach as the young Akbar hunting a nilgau and dated to ca.
1555 takes greater interest in the rendering of space than any Persian exemplars. Ibid. fig. 8 and frontispiece.
Skelton (in Canby, ed., 2002, 44-45) disagrees and dates the whole of the Fitzwilliam Album to ca. 1560.

42

Chandra, P., 1976, in particular 161-170.

43

Seyller 1992.

44

Beach 1987, 9-11. A painting by the former artist in the Gulshan Album shows the boy Akbar presenting a
painting to his father, the painting being presented being a miniature version of the actual painting by Abd as-

references to his interest in painting scattered through Abl Fazls Akbarnma, the history of
Akbars reign, as well as an account of the painting studio given in his in-i Akbar.
Although the latter was written 1591-1598, Akbars vigorous defence recorded therein of the
practice of painting applied throughout his reign: I cannot tolerate those who make the
slightest criticism of this art. It seems to me that a painter is better than most in gaining a
knowledge of God. Each time he draws a living being he must draw each and every limb of
it, but seeing that he cannot bring it to life must perforce give thought to the miracle wrought
by the Creator and thus obtain a knowledge of Him.45
At the beginning of Akbars reign, the established court style was scarcely different from that
of Safavid Iran, although as we have noted portraits were beginning to take on a corporeality
foreign to their source. The major manuscript from this period, occupying almost the whole
of the efforts of the Mughal studio, is the Hamzanma (Story of Hamza), a rambling series
of tales dealing with the mythical adventures of Amr Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet, in
mostly infidel lands.46 We are informed from various sources that this consisted originally of
1400 paintings on cloth, not far short of just under a metre square if the mostly vanished
margins are taken into account, and divided into fourteen (or twelve) volumes, and that it
took fifteen (or more) years to complete. Both the physical appearance of the manuscript and
its extent are unprecedented in Islamic painting.47 Such large cycles of paintings, however,
and the arrangement of every folio being illustrated are found in earlier Indian manuscripts,
as we have seen, and are natural responses to the problems of multiple languages and
widespread illiteracy in Indian society. Whether Akbars reputed illiteracy is relevant here is
unknown, but we do know that tales from the Hamzanma were recounted in public and
presumably these paintings were held up during the recitation.48
We are also told that the project was firstly under the control of Mr Sayyid Al, supervising
the work of thirty artists, but that after seven years only four volumes had been produced,
after which Abd as-Samad was put in charge and the whole process speeded up as well as
the expenditure reduced.49 None of the sources gives a precise date but the general consensus
had been that it was produced in the years 1562-1577. The discovery of what might be a date
on one of the paintings has suggested an alternative dating of 1557/8-1572/3.50 While this
earlier dating clarifies what the studio was producing during Akbars early years, it does

Samad. This is normally thought of as having been done in Kabul, but Beach 1987, 9-11, argues that it records
an incident mentioned in the Akbarnma after Hmyns return to Delhi.
45

Retranslated in Chandra, P., 1976, 184; see also Blochmann vol. 1, 115.

46

Now widely dispersed. 61 paintings are in the Museum fr Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, and 21 in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
47

The Flnma or Book of Omens done for Shh Tahmsp ca. 1550-1555 is a possible precedent in size, but
contains only thirty known folios.
48

Sellyer 2002, 41-42. Abl Fazl records this practice in 1564.

49

The sources differ about the precise number of paintings, of volumes and about the time it took to complete.
Chandra, P., 1976, 62-68, and Seyller 2002, 32-37, review the sources most thoroughly.
50

Seyller 1993 and 2002, 38-40. Rejected by Melikian-Chirvani in Das, ed., 1998, 50, fn 7, followed by
Stronge 2002, 177, n 25.

leave a gap in the studios production for the next ten years.51 Buildings portrayed in the
Hamzanma also seem drawn from Akbars constructions within the Agra fort (from the late
1560s) and especially at Fatehpur Sikri built 1571-1585. The latter depend greatly on the
Indo-Islamic traditions specific to Gujarat, probably not available to Akbar until after his
conquest of that kingdom in 1572-73. Two Portuguese soldiers are also represented in one
page of the Hamzanma, again difficult to understand before the Mughals came into contact
with Europeans in Gujarat in 1573.52
Although only a tenth of the paintings survive, the majority from volumes eleven and twelve,
it is in the Hamzanma that we can see Mughal painting developing out of Persian inspired
idioms into a genuinely new style unique to India. Early paintings echo Persian exemplars in
the flatness of their architecture, the staidness of their compositions and the decorative
treatment of the surface of the painting. They have text panels at top and bottom of the
painting and were possibly once on both sides of the folio, thereby trying to integrate the
painting into the text. The later paintings fill the entire page and positively burst with energy
and physicality; they have started the integration of foreground and background and
concentrate on the major figures of the story.
For the production of such a manuscript, the existing small Mughal studio inherited from
Hmyn with its elite Persian artists had to be expanded into a much larger and more
organised enterprise. Some thirty artists are mentioned as having worked on the Hamzanma
and must have been recruited from existing workshops throughout India where they had
worked in the various Sultanate, Indo-Persian or Early Rajput styles. Although no physical
evidence is left, it is possible that some of these artists were used to more large scale
compositions on cloth or on walls. The great early Mughal artist Dasvant, for example, we
are told by Abl Fazl, was a mural painter recruited by Akbar himself to the studio.53
No artists names are inscribed on any early Mughal manuscript other than the problematic
Ttnma (Cleveland Museum). Some twelve artists are identified therein by name,
including Dasvant, Basvan and Tra who are included in the list of great artists mentioned
by Abl Fazl, while the work of another thirty-three has been isolated.54 After his
encomiums of Dasvant and Basvan in his in-i Akbar, Abl Fazl continues: The other
famous and excellent painters are Kesu, Lal, Mukund, Miskin, Farrukh the Qalmaq, Madho,
Jagan, Mahes, Khemkaran, Tara, Sanwla, Harbans and Ram.55 The names of most of these
artists are inscribed by librarians beside their paintings on the succeeding manuscripts, i.e. the
Drbnma (begun ca. 1580, British Library) and the Razmnma (begun 1582, City Palace
Museum, Jaipur) and hence they may reasonably be expected to have been among the artists
who joined the studio for the production of the Hamzanma. An attempt, however, to

51

A gap not altogether filled by the undated manuscripts of Tilasm and Zodiac (Rampur State Library) and
Drbnma (British Library).
52

Stronge 2002, 18-19; Beach 1992, 52-53.

53

Chandra, P., 1976, 183-184.

54

Chandra, P., 1976, 78-79.

From in 34 (on the tasvr-khna or painting studio) of Abul Fazls in-i Akbar. C.M. Naims translation,
quoted in Chandra, P., 1976, 184.
55

attribute the paintings of the Hamzanma to named individuals on the basis of such
inscriptions has not been universally accepted.56
It is surprising that there is no trace in the Hamzanma, even in the early paintings, of the
hands of the two Safavid masters, Mr Sayyid Al and Abd as-Samad, who were
successively in charge of it. The Persian elements in the first phase seem more derived from
Bokhara or Shiraz rather than direct from the Safavid court. Although capable of drawing
figures in the Persian manner, their artists seem unaware of the latest Safavid perspective
conventions and instead have their characters act in front of flat but highly decorative
architectural backdrops.57 Such artists were presumably recruited from the more Persianate
of the Sultanate or Deccani sources examined above. In the first twenty years of Akbars
reign, however, Mughal artists forged their own path away from earlier styles, both Persian
and Indian, and worked towards developing a fully integrated style of their own. Apart from
the later paintings in the Hamzanma, it is also found fully developed in two securely dated
manuscripts: the shqa of 1568 (National Museum, New Delhi) and the Anvr-i Suhayl of
1570 (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London).58
Whatever the background of the Indian artists recruited, they were as we have seen unused to
birds eye view perspective and preferred a horizontal viewpoint with faces in profile. The
Safavid convention that higher up the surface of the painting meant farther back in space
must have come as something of a shock to them, as did the necessities to draw figures in
three-quarter profile and to spread them out over the surface of the page. Nonetheless, after
being taught these conventions by Safavid artists, Indian artists were using them convincingly
in the later stages of the Hamzanma.
Clearly knitting together complex subjects caused these artists initial difficulties, especially in
the transition from foreground to background, where they made use of screens of rocks or
trees, which often divide a landscape foreground from a cityscape background seen from
above. In many of the Hamzanmas pages, the artist is not happy with the concept of a
horizon and the paintings subject disappears under the top frame, rather as in an ancient
narrative sculpture. Compared with earlier compositions, however, these settings are serious
attempts to render space in a way that is readable by the viewer.
Naturally, the artists now became concerned to fill their newly developed spatial parameters
with three dimensional people engaged in realistic physical activity interacting with one
another. They rediscovered the lost art of vartana, the concept of modelling through colour
tones that had been laid down in the ancient Indian texts on aesthetics, and modelled their
figures and especially their faces. Safavid artists in Iran had shown a burgeoning interest in
expressing volume, culminating later in the reign of Shh Tahmsp in individual portraits
with a subtle sense of volume and movement.59 From the very earliest such studies done in
India, we find the naturalism of their portraiture significantly increased, even by Safavid
artists such as Mr Sayyid Al as we have seen. It is as if exposed to the Indian air, the
56

Seyller 2002 in particular.

57

Seyller 2002, fig. 13, is a case in point.

58

Losty 1982, 86-87, and for the latter, Seyller 1986.

59

Such as Mrkhn Beg Sarfach and A Prince and a Page in the British Museum (illustrated in Canby, ed.,
1994, 14 and 19.

possibilities of depicting volume in painting were both more obvious and more welcome. Of
course in the Safavid studio, faced with a patron such as Shh Tahmsap who became more
orthodox as he grew older, the artist would simply restrict his obvious bent for naturalism to a
level that was acceptable to Islamic orthodoxy; in India on the contrary, with a new young
ruler of unproved taste, they explored these possibilities further. But there is obviously more
to it than this, because even in the narrative manuscripts such as the Hamzanma, the
characters are depicted more and more naturalistically, their bodies and faces modelled to
express volume, and even their clothes showing sometimes attempts to model drapery. This
was before there was serious European influence on the Mughal studio which begins at the
end of our period with the Mughals first meeting with Europeans in Gujarat in 1572 and
Akbars embassy to Goa 1575-1577.
We know from the various written accounts of Akbars reign how close an interest he took in
the productions of the royal studio. Since [painting] is an excellent source of both study and
entertainment, His Majesty, from the time he came to an awareness of things, has taken a
deep interest in painting and sought its spread and development. Consequently this magical
art has gained in beauty. A very large number of painters has been set to work. Each week
the several daroghas and bitikchis [superintendents and clerks] submit before the king the
work done by each artist, and His Majesty gives a reward and increases the monthly salaries
according to the excellence displayed. Among the forerunners on this high road of
knowledge is Mr Sayyid Al of Tabriz. He has learnt a little from his father. When he
obtained the honour to serve His Majesty and thus gained in knowledge, he became
renowned in his profession and bountiful in good fortune. Next there is Khwaja Abd asSamad, the shirin qalam [sweet-pen] of Shiraz. Though he knew this art before he joined the
royal service, the transmuting glance of the king has raised him to a more sublime level and
his images have gained a depth of spirit.60 Under his tutelage many novices have become
masters. Then there was Daswanta who used to draw images and designs on walls. One
day the far-reaching glance of His Majesty fell on these things and, in its penetrating manner,
discerned the spirit of a master working in them. Consequently, His Majesty entrusted him to
the Khwaja. In just a short time he became matchless in his time and the most excellent
In designing, painting faces, colouring, portrait painting and other aspects of this art,
Basawan has come to be uniquely excellent. Many perspicacious connoisseurs give him
preference over Daswant. Persian books of both prose and poetry were decorated and a
great many large and beautiful compositions were painted , His Majesty himself having
indicated the scenes to be painted.61
The early Akbari architectural style seen at Agra and Fatehpur Sikri is a synthesis formed
from the Indo-Islamic regional styles of Gujarat and Bengal, combined with earlier Hindu
ideas on architectural symbolism, all designed to establish Akbar as a universal ruler through
political and cultural integration on all possible levels in a complex interaction between the
regional and supra-regional.62 Similarly, Abl Fazls intention to portray Akbar as a
universal man and his wearisome sycophancy must not blind us to the fact that he is
claiming that Akbar personally influenced the development of Mughal painting: out of a
Robert Skelton (in Canby, ed., 2002, 37) suggests for this last passage and his forms turned their face to
meaning i.e. to reality.

60

61

From in 34 of Abul Fazls in-i Akbar. C.M. Naims translation, quoted in Chandra, P., 1976, 182-184.

62

Ebba Koch, in Seyller 2002, 31.

medley of disparate styles from India, Central Asia, Iran and (eventually) Europe, he created
a unified synthesis that became increasingly concerned with the convincing portrayal of
reality. Obviously he needed artists of genius to do so, prepared to experiment, but given his
intense interest in his painting establishment it is hardly likely that he would have encouraged
this trend had he disapproved of it. Having created the style, he used it to illustrate every
kind of book in his universal library romances and fables in his youth, histories in his
maturity and poetry in his old age.

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