Antelope and deer hunt (c. 1602–4): Art, History and Details

Antelope and deer hunt (c. 1602–4) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Govardhan (Indian, active c.1596–1645).

The work and its context

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

The Mughals used trained cheetahs, such as this one wearing a red collar, to capture prey during hunting expeditions in the wilderness. The metaphor of the hunt was also a potent image in Persian literature, in which the protagonist finally achieves a desired goal. The central image of the cheetah catching the black buck—a frequently repeated visual trope—resonates with the desire of Prince Salim (who was passionate about hunting) to capture the throne of the Mughal Empire from Akbar, his father. Between 1600 and 1605, when Prince Salim set up his own royal court in defiance of his father, he convinced some imperial artists to join him. The young Govardhan, a Hindu who would go on to achieve high stature in the atelier of the next two emperors, was one of them.

Object facts

• Title: Antelope and deer hunt
• Date: c. 1602–4
• Creator attribution: Govardhan (Indian, active c.1596–1645)
• Culture: Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 20 x 11.8 cm (7 7/8 x 4 5/8 in.); Overall: 37 x 25.3 cm (14 9/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1939.66

A detail from the museum

The gray antelope in the foreground is called a nilgai and is the largest antelope in Asia.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. "Two Mughal Miniatures." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 27, no. 6 (June 1940): 91–92, 94–97.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.