Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.46.2

c14.46.2

Humayun, whose interest in books was instinctive, added also to the collection, and each member of the dynasty made his contribution whenever he found himself able to do so. To Akbar, however, the great mass of the collection was mainly due, and at the time that he was gathering around him much literary and artistic talent these books and pictures were most frequently used. Some idea of the contents of the library can be gained from the rare examples bearing the imperial seals which have survived, and it is not difficult to visualize the contents of this storehouse of literature and art, and to appreciate its educational value to the scholar or the painter. In its illustrative and pictorial sections alone it appears to have been singularly rich, and, under the able superintendence of Maktub Khan, who we learn was in sole charge of both the library and picture gallery, the institution was well administered. Here the painter could study examples of the primitives of his art—Arabian manuscripts from Baghdad—which in their rich but crude embellishments showed traces of a connexion with the mosaic saints of the Byzantine church. From these he would pass to volumes from a Mongol source, whose pictures of battles and feasts, although barbaric in their subject-matter, betrayed in their refined treatment the unmistakable influence of the art of China under the Yuan dynasty.