Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c9.s1.6

c9.s1.6

The use of zinc-white by Mughal painters till recently, raises an important question whether the *safedā* used in Mughal paintings of 16th and 17th centuries was in reality the zinc-white, or was it white lead, as the process of making zinc-white was discovered in the 18th century. It seems, there has been some confusion of nomenclatures after zinc-white was available in the market. The question could, however, be only finally settled after a careful scientific analysis of the whites used in Western Indian paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries and early Mughal paintings.