page_title: Mughal painting
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Mughal painting / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Mughal miniature painting, attributed to Abd as-Samad, ca. 1550-1555 This is the earliest known example of a Mughal painting, which has been described by J.M. Rogers as 'a variety of Islamic painting practised in India principally in the 16th and 17th centuries'. The painting is in colours and gold on fine cotton fabric. What has survived of the picture depicts a ruler seated in a garden pavilion and wearing Central Asian dress. He is flanked by two servants and faces a visitor. To either side of him are courtiers and nobles and, in the background, servants. The missing foreground probably depicted dancers and musicians performing a courtly entertainment. The central figure is believed to be Humayun (1508-56), the second Mughal Emperor; many of the heads were repainted to depict later Mughal rulers, creating a genealogical scene.
context_page_description: Mughal painting is a particular style of South Asian, particularly North Indian, painting confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums. It emerged from Persian miniature painting and developed in the court of the Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries. The Mughal emperors were Muslims and they are credited with consolidating Islam in South Asia, and spreading Muslim arts and culture as well as the faith.
  Mughal painting immediately took a much greater interest in realistic portraiture than was typical of Persian miniatures. Animals and plants were the main subject of many miniatures for albums, and were more realistically depicted. Although many classic works of Persian literature continued to be illustrated, as well as Indian works, the taste of the Mughal emperors for writing memoirs or diaries, begun by Babur, provided some of the most lavishly decorated texts, such as the Padshahnama genre of official histories. Subjects are rich in variety and include portraits, events and scenes from court life, wild life and hunting scenes, and illustrations of battles.
context_section_description: After a tentative start under Humayun, the great period of Mughal painting was during the next three reigns, of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, which covered just over a century between them.
caption: Princes of the House of Timur, attributed to the Persian Abd as-Samad, c. 1550–1555, with additions in the next century under Jahangir.[22]
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