Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c16.1.2

c16.1.2

Among several florid couplets painted on the central pavilion of this edifice by the Mughal artist in praise of the beauty of his own handiwork, is one which reads, ‘the face of its wall is so decorated, that it demands from the painters of China a fee for showing its face’. In spite of the somewhat vague hyperbole, such an inscription does not fail to indicate that the Indians continued to regard their fellow craftsmen in the Far East as serious competitors in the pictorial art. When this array of palaces was occupied by its founder, and in the height of its splendour, it was a suitable setting to the gorgeous pageants which took place within its walls. Plate XXIV¹ depicts a durbar being held in the *Diwan-i-* Am, or ‘ Hall of Public Audience ’, on the occasion of the reception by Shah Jahan of an embassy from Persia, which event probably took place soon after his accession in the year 1628. The emperor was then thirty-six years old, which is about the age at which the artist has portrayed him, and the picture is typical, not only of the painting, but also of the pomp, even pretentiousness, of the Mughals during the first half of the seventeenth century. The incident here recorded could not have taken place, however, at Shah Jahan’s palace at Delhi, as the construction of this was not begun until some years later, but the building shown in his picture bears considerable similarity to the one which was ultimately erected by this emperor on the banks of the Jumna.