Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c21.3.4

c21.3.4

Not only had he obtained many objects of great curiosity, but his craftsmen had studied and made themselves efficient in many newly acquired arts; and, most important of all, he had actually engaged a number of Europeans to come and carry on their trades at the court of the ‘ Great Mogul ’. Unfortunately the details that have survived of the results of Akbar’s enterprise are meagre, although it is recorded that one article which received the special admiration of the emperor was a church organ ‘ like a great box the size of a man, played by a European sitting inside ’. One of the court artists, Mādho Khanazād, subsequently introduced the instrument into a picture he painted of a musician (Plato) charming a large concourse of wild beasts who lie helpless around him. It forms one of the illustrations in Mr. Dyson Perrins’s copy of the *Khamsah* (fol. 298, Plate 40).¹