The siege of Arbela in the era of Hulagu Khan, from a Chingiz-nama (Book of Chingiz Khan) of the Jami al-tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) of Rashid al-Din (Persian, 1247–1318) (c. 1596): Art, Histo

The siege of Arbela in the era of Hulagu Khan, from a Chingiz-nama (Book of Chingiz Khan) of the Jami al-tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) of Rashid al-Din (Persian, 1247–1318) (c. 1596) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Basavana (Indian, active c. 1560–1600); Sur Das Gujarati (Indian, active 16th century).

The work and its context

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

A Mongol conqueror riding a white horse gazes stonily at his defeated West Asian opponent in a scene that took place more than 300 years before this painting was made. By the end of the 1500s there was a new emphasis on creating paintings to accompany historical texts. Visually, the diagonal composition with cityscape at the top of the page—also found among the earliest Mughal paintings—was expanded to include throngs of participants and a startling new naturalism. Painting from the Akbar period reached its maturity by the 1590s in works such as this: dynamic in composition and gestures but contained within organized spaces and emphasized three-dimensionality.

Object facts

• Title: The siege of Arbela in the era of Hulagu Khan, from a Chingiz-nama (Book of Chingiz Khan) of the Jami al-tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) of Rashid al-Din (Persian, 1247–1318)
• Date: c. 1596
• Creator attribution: Basavana (Indian, active c. 1560–1600); Sur Das Gujarati (Indian, active 16th century)
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 34 x 20 cm (13 3/8 x 7 7/8 in.); Overall: 38.5 x 25 cm (15 3/16 x 9 13/16 in.); with mat: 49 x 36.3 cm (19 5/16 x 14 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1947.502

A detail from the museum

The lord of the citadel in blue is negotiating its surrender to the Mongol general, who rides the white horse in the lower right.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.