Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c16.24

c16.24

judge of a miniature, and had gathered his examples with care. That he was catholic in his views is also proved by the presence of several European engravings among its pages, one of which (fol. 43) depicts ‘ St. Catherine of Siena ’ and bears its own date of 1585. As an illustration of the state of this art under Shah Jahan, the forty miniatures of the Dara Shikoh album are of some value. It must be admitted, however, that very few of the pictures show any strength, although on the other hand they may have been chosen for the femininity of their character, as the volume formed a present to a lady. Representative specimens from this album are reproduced on Plate XXII, Fig. 2, and Plate LV, from which the quality of the work may be appraised. One picture (fol. 21 b) bearing a date equivalent to A. D. 1633-4 and inscribed with the name Muhammad Khan, may be from the brush of Shah Jahan’s head artist, to whom reference has been already made. The subject is a portrait of a youthful exquisite, dressed in Persian costume, and obviously a frank copy of a late Safavid original. Most of the remaining miniatures in the book are, however, purely Mughal in character, the subjects being figures, animals and birds, and flowers, all fairly good, but none of outstanding merit, being a selection of the ordinary style of painting which was in vogue at the time.