Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c18.2.4

c18.2.4

In the majority of Akbari pictures two artists only have combined, the one making the *tarrah*¹ or sketch, and the other doing the *‘aml*, work, or painting. On occasion, however, there may also have been a third who did the *chihra-numā* or portraiture, and, very rarely, a fourth who supplied the *surat* or figure-drawing. In a few pictures the inscription also states that one of the artists undertook the *rang-āmezi*, or colouring. In these circumstances it is easy to understand that the clerk who wrote the inscriptions was sometimes uncertain to whom the various parts of the work were to be apportioned. The difficulties in any comparison between the different pictures, certain parts of which are presumed to be the work of one artist, when his collaborators have not been the same, will likewise become intelligible.