Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c15.35.2

c15.35.2

The story of this ride—much of it accomplished on swift she-camels—is most graphically told in the *Akbarnāma*,¹ and shows that all those who aspired to serve this monarch, even his artists, had to be men of mettle, and able to endure the utmost hardship. But Jahangir’s progress through life was of a more leisurely order, and the subjects that he commissioned his artists to paint were not battles and sieges, beloved of his father, but incidents of peace. Many of these he described fully in his memoirs, and at the end of each account he almost invariably added the words, ‘ I ordered my painters to make its picture ’. And so we have every object that excited his attention, and every incident in which he figured, realistically set down by his court artists who were always at hand to carry out his behests. The most important of these pictures are generally those in which the emperor occupied the central position, and in all collections of Indian miniatures some of these are to be found. With these before us we may follow his movements and even share in the innocent pleasures with which he varied his indulgent life. Here we may see him travelling in state to Kandahar accompanied by appropriately attired officials and discussing with them everything that attracted his notice (Plate XIX). Again, at the end of the day’s march, he is depicted resting in a garden, one of those formally designed retreats in which the Mughals loved to spend their leisure hours.