This is an important collaged album page with a genealogical chart of Shah Jahan. It gives a fascinating insight into Mughal dynastic identity and familial history in the early to mid-seventeenth century, portraying not only the four sons of Shah Jahan that lived to adulthood but also those who died in infancy. In many cases, these are the only known portraits of his lesser-known offspring. The portraits are arranged in a hierarchy of size for age and importance.

According to the tiny inscription on the globe held by Shah Jahan, the portraits were made in the year of the emperor’s accession to the throne in 1628. The page as a whole was probably constituted c. 1637-8, the date given on the tear-drop cartouche of calligraphy with Shah Jahan’s title Sahib-I Qiran in the upper half of the page. A tiny inscription in a very fine hand on the portrait of Dara Shikoh appears to be a signature of Nadir uz-Zaman (‘Wonder of the Age’, the title for Abu’l Hasan). The signature can be understood as applying to all the portraits even though each is on a separate roundel of paper stuck to the page. The quality of the portraits fits with the attribution to such a celebrated painter as Abu’l Hasan, although several of the portraits have later retouching. The face of Dara Shikoh was almost certainly repainted in 1638 when the page was put together. Dara Shikoh would not have had a beard in 1628 when he was only 13 years old, but his appearance fits closely with comparative portraits from the late 1630s. 

The upper portion of the page has collaged sections of illumination and calligraphy, juxtaposing fine sixteenth-century naqqash illumination with contemporary seventeenth-century calligraphy. This concept of reuse was deeply embedded in the studio practice of the imperial Mughal atelier from its inception, providing a material residue on the page that physically connects the Mughals to their ancestral and cultural heritage through the Timurids and Safavids.

The page has extensive poetry, most notably the beautifully calligraphed verses of Hafez beneath the portrait roundels. The rice starch in the sizing of this paper has proved particularly attractive to a book worm at some point.

INSCRIPTIONS:

Globe inscribed:  پادشاه غازی شاه خهان در سنه جاوس مبارک تحریر یافت  Padshah Ghazi Shah Jahan in the year of donning the royal diadem