A Mughal courtier (c. 1575; border added probably 1700s): Art, History and Details

A Mughal courtier (c. 1575; border added probably 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This sensitive portrait is among the earliest surviving individual portraits from the Mughal atelier. He remains unidentified by inscription, since such portraits were made for the emperor Akbar who was unable to read. Realism in portraiture developed under Akbar as a means of keeping records of gifts and promotions without written notations. The figure conspicuously grasps the maroon and gold scarf in his left hand, which suggests that it may have been the gift from the emperor that would have occasioned the portrait. The array of blades he carries indicates that he was conscripted into military service at the Mughal court.

Object facts

• Title: A Mughal courtier
• Date: c. 1575; border added probably 1700s
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper, mounted with gold-sprinkled borders
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.294

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's, London. Catalogue of Highly Important Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures The Property of the Kevorkian Foundation.6 December 1967.
• Welch, Stuart Cary, and Mark Zebrowski. A Flower from Every Meadow: Indian Paintings from American Collections. New York: Asia Society; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1973.
• Brand, Michael, and Glenn D. Lowry. Akbar's India: Art from the Mughal City of Victory. New York: Asia Society Galleries, 1985.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.