Equine Art

AN EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF A MUGHAL NOBLE

A Prince (Akbar?) hawking

Attributed to Payag,

Portrait of a Golconda Prince

ca. 1660–70

Geography: Attributed to India, Deccan, Golconda                

Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper               

“The main image is a portrait of a youth, probably a prince from the Qutb Shahi dynasty (1496–1687), seated on a horse and displayed against a green background, a well-known device in Mughal portraiture. The image is painted with careful attention to detail; for instance, the dappled grey horse is rendered with a mixture of sharp outlines and fine brushstrokes to suggest the softness of its coat and the fine dots at its hooves that may denote horseshoes.” - Fatima Quraishi

"Shah Jahan on Horseback", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Artist: Painting by Payag (Indian, active ca. 1591–1658)

Calligrapher: Mir 'Ali Haravi (d. ca. 1550)

Object Name: Album leaf

Date: verso: ca. 1630; recto: ca. 1530–50

Geography: Attributed to India

Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

Payag worked for the emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan over the course of a remarkably long, seven-decade career, and his brother Balchand was also a talented painter with whom he collaborated on a handful of paintings. The attribution of this portrait to Payag, written in the border below the painting by Shah Jahan, was recently confirmed by the discovery of a microscopic signature on the golden tip of the emperor’s bow.

Maharana Sangram Singh Riding a Prize Stallion

ca. 1712

Presented within a long-standing tradition of imperial portraiture, Maharana Sangram Singh sits on rearing horse flanked by attendants holding fly whisks. A radiant halo further aggrandizes the king and references his dynastic descent from the sun god. The premier artist who executed this work used a stippling technique that is otherwise unknown in Rajput painting, though it does have Mughal and Deccan precedents. This distinctive approach coupled with a sparse use of color allows the paper substrate to show through, giving the painting a dreamlike quality seen in works from the period only by this artist.

Artist: Stipple Master (Indian, active ca. 1690–1715)

Artist: Jai Ram (?)

Date: ca. 1712

Culture: India (Rajasthan, Mewar)

Allahvardi Khan out hawking, c.1660

A Mughal horseman rides his horse confidently through the green countryside, raising his right arm backwards to let loose the falcon sitting on his wrist, Mughal, c. 1660. Johnson Album 67, 2. As featured in the British Library exhibition, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire.

Image reference c07840-01

Shah Shuja', Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh

Place of origin: Mughal Empire (made)Date: ca. 1635 (made)Artist/Maker: Balchand (made)Materials and Techniques: Painted in opaque watercolour and gold on paper

This painting depicts three sons of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658). They are identified in the Persian inscription in the border beneath, which states that these are the likenesses of Shah Shuja' Bahadur, Aurangzeb Bahadur and Murad Bakhsh, and that it is the work of the artist Balchand. The artist's own faint signature is discernible on the white tree trunk behind the princes. The painting has the floral borders characteristic of the albums of Shah Jahan which contained folios with paintings on one side and specimens of fine calligraphy on the other.

The folio is from a group of paintings acquired at auction in 1925 where they were sold as "The Minto Album" and subsequently divided between the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and the V&A.