Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c18.1.2

c18.1.2

Of the former very few authentic examples remain, as the albums of celebrities prepared at Akbar's order have been broken up and dispersed. But of the pictured manuscripts quite a number have been preserved, from which it is possible to gain a comprehensive idea of this aspect of Mughal painting. As this art had been derived from Persia, it is only natural that at first it imitated in every respect the productions of the Safavid artists, even to confining its activities almost entirely to illustrating the classical literature of ancient Iran. So we find Abu'l Fazl recording that 'Persian books, both prose and poetry, were ornamented with pictures, and a very large number of paintings was thus collected. The story of Hamzah was represented in twelve volumes, and clever painters made the astonishing illustrations for no less than one thousand and four hundred passages of the story. The Chingiz-namah, the Zafarnamah, this book, the Razmnamah, the Ramayan, the Nal Daman, the Kalilah wa Damnah, the Ayar Danish, &c., were all illustrated.’ Several of the actual manuscripts here referred to, and containing the original pictures by the Akbari artists, together with a number of others not in Abu’l Fazl’s list, have survived, and we are thus presented with adequate material for study.