Master Artists of the Imperial Mughal Court by Pratapaditya Pal HCDJ

Published 1991

148 pages

MASTER ARTISTS OF THE IMPERIAL MUCHAL COURT

This volume on Mughal Masters, following the earlier Marg volume, Persian Masters-five centuries of painting edited by Sheila Canby, has been conceived and edited by Pratapaditya Pal. It includes essays on nine master painters of the imperial Mughal workshop under the Emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan. The artists featured are Basawan, Miskin, Mansur, Manohar Abul Hasan, Daulat, Hashim, Payag, and Balchand. The nine essays have been written by eight scholars who are specialists in Mughal painting.

The period covered by the nine artists is less than a century. marking the heyday of the imperial Mughal workshop founded by Humayun. Thus, although only a few of the more than one hundred artists who worked in the imperial atelier are included, the volume should provide readers unfamiliar with Mughal painting with a brief introduction to the subject. What is unique about this volume is the fact that for the first time it discusses Mughal painting through the contributions of individual artists. It would not be wrong to say that Mughal painting remains the most popular branch of Indian art history with scholars, particularly in the West. Also, much more information is available about Mughal artists than those of any other period or school of Indian art. And yet, to date, except for some articles on a few Mughal masters, no book has been published on individual artists. It is hoped that other volumes will follow, and one day even a compilation of the lives and works of all the Mughal artists will be available.

Apart from lucidly written, insightful essays, the book is richly illustrated with a large number of illustrations, both in colour and black and white, of both familiar and lesser known Mughal paintings.