Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c18.2.3

c18.2.3

To test the accuracy of the scribes, the obvious procedure would be to compare a number of pictures bearing the same name but in different manuscripts in order to see whether they were similar in style or workmanship. There is, however, a somewhat unusual complication in any attempt at classification on these terms, as it was the custom for several painters to collaborate on one picture, so that it is rare to find any miniature which is entirely the work of one artist. As an example, although pictures with an inscription including the name of the famous Akbari artist Daswanth are not uncommon, there is no specimen of his painting which is the sole product of his own hand. In all his designs some portion of the work, either the drawing or the painting, was entrusted to other exponents, whose names, included with Daswanth’s, are written on the margin. That such a method of partnership was common is proved by the Emperor Jahangir’s comment quoted in Chapter III, in which, if his statement is to be literally accepted, even the features in a portrait may be the work of more than one artist. The system, which strikes the occidental as a somewhat unusual one, seems to have been derived from Persia, where it is observable in a few pictures of the Safavid school, although it was left to the early Mughal artists to elaborate the practice.