Jewel Portrait of a Young Girl (c. 1660): Art, History and Details

Jewel Portrait of a Young Girl (c. 1660) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This small drawing of a young girl wearing a chaghtai cap may be a likeness of a member of a royal or courtly Mughal family. The accuracy of female portraiture is an unresolved issue in Mughal art, as there are many paintings of women that appear to be studies of female beauty rather than visual records of real people. However, because the girl in this painting is not an idealized type, it is more likely that this is a true portrait. Unlike jewel portraits of emperors that were intended to be worn in public as status symbols, this was more likely a private gift of sentimental value.

Object facts

• Title: Jewel Portrait of a Young Girl
• Date: c. 1660
• Culture: India, Mughal, 17th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: ink drawing with slight accents of color
• Dimensions: Image: 3.3 x 2.4 cm (1 5/16 x 15/16 in.); Overall: 4.6 x 3.8 cm (1 13/16 x 1 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1968.71

Collection credit

Gift of Arthur L. Parker Foundation

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.