Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c21.25

c21.25

projecting below the pearl-fringed canopy of the throne. Enough of these has been brought into view by the artist to enable us to identify these as pictures of Jesus and the Virgin. Nevertheless, Shah Jahan’s patronage of painting being of a more moderate order than that of his predecessors, it did not encourage any European artist to travel out to India to practise his profession at the Mughal court. In fact the tide seems to have set against the employment of Western talent except in isolated instances, so that nearly two centuries elapse before another European painter arrives on the shores of India. But occidental elements in Mughal painting were propagated by other means. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century Shah Abbas II of Persia (1642–67), whose leanings towards Western culture were most marked, had dispatched from his capital a group of young Persians to study various subjects in some of the centres of learning in Europe. Among these was a painter, who proceeded to work for a considerable period at a studio in Rome. While there he became converted to Christianity, so that on his return he was compelled to leave Persia, and eventually to seek the protection of the Mughal. This painter was most probably Muhammad Zaman, whose work may be examined in three pictures in the British Museum copy of the *Khamsah*, Or. 2265, folios 203 b, 213 a, and 221 b. Manifestly occidental in character, they leave no doubt as to the course of study that the young Persian adopted; and if, as he appears to have done, he became a protégé of the Mughal emperor, the growth of the European element in the painting of Shah Jahan’s reign is readily explained. The result of Muhammad Zaman’s presence in Delhi and the influence of his occidental training on those around him may be observed in many of the pictures of the time of Shah Jahan, as for example in the borders of the portrait album produced under the supervision of Faqīrullāh Khān. On the upper part of the mount of most of these there is a design of flying angels on billowy clouds, with a background of rainbows and radiant suns, which, while fantastic in some respects, is not unconnected with the art of Raphael or his school.