A Mughal Prince, Perhaps Danyal, Holding a Sprig of Flowers (c. 1580–90): Art, History and Details
A Mughal Prince, Perhaps Danyal, Holding a Sprig of Flowers at the Cleveland Museum of Art: c. 1580–90, Gum tempera and gold on paper. Explore the work's context, creator attribution and collection history.
A Mughal Prince, Perhaps Danyal, Holding a Sprig of Flowers (c. 1580–90) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.
The work and its context
The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:
Prince Danyal (1527–1605), the emperor Akbar’s youngest son, is said to have been his favorite. Danyal served his father as a military officer, leading contingents to the Deccan plateau in southern India, until he succumbed to an untimely death of alcoholism; Akbar himself died later that year. Here, Danyal wears the thumb ring of an archer and grasps a white flower in his hand, recalling his epithet, Nosegay of Fortune’s Spring. In his right hand he holds prayer beads. A sword, knife, and dagger hang from his sash. This early Mughal portrait depicts him as he appeared in his mid-teens.
Object facts
- Title: A Mughal Prince, Perhaps Danyal, Holding a Sprig of Flowers
- Date: c. 1580–90
- Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
- Type: Painting
- Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Dimensions: Miniature: 14.6 x 8.7 cm (5 3/4 x 3 7/16 in.)
- Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
- Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Accession number: 2013.293
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. Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. 20 November 1986.
- Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016.
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.
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