Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.17

c14.17

But several years elapsed before the Mughal emperor’s star was again in the ascendant; and it was not until 1550 that the two artists left their native country to join him at Kabul. Here, on the confines of his empire, Humayun re-established some semblance of authority, while awaiting a favourable opportunity to lead his followers into Hindustan and regain his lost kingdom. Although engaged in the preparations for this important event, Humayun found leisure for many peaceful occupations, in which he utilized the services of his artists from Tabriz. It is related¹ that he and his little son Akbar took lessons in drawing and interested themselves generally in the subject of painting. Here also Humayun started Mir Sayyid Ali on a commission that was to last him for the greater part of his life, and that has survived as one of the most valuable records of the early Mughal school. He was ordered to prepare a large and fully illustrated copy of a famous Persian classic, the Amir Hamzah (Dastan-i-Amir-Hamzah), the scope of which shows that Humayun was a patron of large ideas. It was to consist of twelve volumes of one hundred folios each, and each folio was to contain an illustration. The whole book therefore when finished would comprise some twelve hundred pictures of an unusually large size, as each page measured 22 inches by 28¼. Portions of Mir Sayyid Ali’s magnum opus have survived, some sixty pages being preserved in the Industrial Museum, Vienna, while twenty-five are in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, at South Kensington, one of which is reproduced on Plate VII. As we learn that, after being engaged on it for seven years, four volumes only were completed, which is at the rate of more than one page a week, it is clear that Mir Sayyid Ali did not do the work single-handed. He and Abdus Samad collaborated; and, with a few assistants, either Persian or Indian, thus brought together, they formed the nucleus of the Mughal school. This beginning would have been further developed by the emperor, had he been allowed the time to devote to it. But arduous days followed, Humayun’s dramatic swoop down from his eyry in the Himalayas into the plains of the Punjab took place, and marches and counter-marches were the order of the day. In the end the Mughal wrested the sceptre from the Pathan usurper, and made himself again master of Hindustan. During this time, while battles were being won and lost, and the fate of the empire lay in the balance, the two Persian artists were quietly painting their illustrations of the Amir Hamzah, looking for the day when they would be able to show the progress of the work to their imperial employer. But fate decreed that Humayun should but taste the cup of happiness only to have it dashed from his lips. Within a few months of having reinstalled himself on the Mughal throne, an accident on the steps of his library at Delhi deprived him of his life.