Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.44

c14.44

About the same time that the Kalmack appears at the capital of the Mughals, another Persian artist arrived in Hindustan. This was Aqa Riza, who seems to have taken employment under Prince Salim, the heir-apparent to the Mughal throne. Salim, when he became the Emperor Jahangir, while eulogizing in his Memoirs the work of one of his court artists, Abu'l-Hasan, incidentally adds that this painter's ‘father, Aqa Riza, of Herat, at the time I was prince, joined my service’.¹ The Aqa Riza here referred to can be no other than a well-known member of the Safavid school of artists, who made a reputation in Persia during the later years of Shah Tahmasp's reign. Jahangir, a great connoisseur, gives the painter from Herat some praise, but does not consider him quite equal to his son, Abu'l-Hasan, who ultimately became one of the leading artists of this monarch's reign. Aqa Riza must, however, have been an elderly man when he came to India, and probably his hand had begun to lose its cunning. But in his day, trained by the famous Mir Ali of Herat, he was responsible for some very fine work, although he was renowned more for his copies of old masters than for any original work. In this particular line, however, he was credited with unsurpassed charm in drawing and colour. A picture, one of a small series found in India, and possibly from the brush of this painter, is reproduced on Plate III, Fig. 2. It is in the Bukhara style, but Aqa Riza at one period of his career resided in that city, and no doubt imbibed some of the distinctive character of its art. The work of such a man must have had no little influence on the work of the Mughal school at this formative stage of its development, and when it is understood that he settled down in India and trained up a son to carry on the family tradition during the reign of Akbar’s successor, the effect of his style of painting would be retained.