Title: Shah Jahan on a globe with his four sons, by Balchand (recto), Persian calligraphy by Mir `Ali (verso), folio from the Minto Album Artist and production place: Balchand Agra, Dawlat Agra Calligrapher and production place: Mir `Ali Haravi, Bukhara (possibly) Production date: Calligraphy (verso) 1505-1545, painting (recto) 1628-1630, album page 1630-1640 Dimensions: 392 mm x 284 mm (height x width) Material: Paper (material), Pigment (material), Ink (material) Gold Language: Persian (language) Script type: Nasta'liq script Collection: Indian collection Document type: Painting Object name: Album (painting) Description Shah Jahan on a globe with his four sons, signed Balchand (recto), Persian calligraphy signed Mir `Ali (verso), folio from the Minto Album. In this allegorical family portrait, Shah Jahan stands on the globe, with his haloed head in profile and two hovering putti in the clouds above holding a crown. The emperor's four young sons stand around him: (from right) Dara Shikoh offering a tray of jewels, Muradbakhsh, Awrangzib (the next Mughal ruler) and Shah Shuja holding a jewelled turban ornament. Behind the boys, a Persian inscription runs from right to left, praising Shah Jahan and comparing his power to that of the sun. The "Minto Album" refers to a set of forty album pages, now in the collections of the Chester Beatty and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). Together with two other known sets of album pages (the "Wantage Album" also in the V&A, and the "Kevorkian Album" in the Metropolitan Museum (New York) and the Freer-Sackler Museum (Washington, DC)), these dispersed folios were originally part of several imperial Mughal Indian albums, owned by Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and his son Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658). The exact reconstruction (and even the number) of those original court albums is much complicated by later reformatting of the folios and their contents, rearranged into new groups, and with works re-set among later additions in new albums. As a broad group, these Mughal albums represent an extraordinary art collection: contemporary portraits of rulers, officials, soldiers and holy men, private scenes of palace life, and animal studies, contrasted with a more consistent series of older Persian calligraphic works by the renowned Mir `Ali Haravi (d. 1544), re-framed in new Mughal surroundings. His large, signed "exhibition piece" calligraphy lines were produced as standalone quotations; much smaller lines of calligraphy were cut from small-format "safina" books of poetry, and arranged as border elements throughout the albums. The works were also planned in pairs, to face one another on a page-opening, in a carefully curated layout. Images faced images, and calligraphy faced calligraphy. Both rulers added their notes and commentary to many of the images, identifying painters or commenting on the sitter of a portrait. Most dramatically, all of these works on paper are mounted in decorated album pages, which follow distinct design programmes throughout the albums. Informed by European botanical print illustrations, these may depict flowering plant specimens and flying insects, painted in gold against dark blue or cream backgrounds, or in bright colour, gold-outlined against cream paper. More stylised border designs drawing from Iran organise leafy floral stems in spiralling scrollwork, ordered trellis or pinned among palmette strapwork and lobed medallions, against cream or dark blue grounds. These different border modes are dateable, as they follow shifts in Mughal taste under Jahangir (for the gold-painted plants on deep blue or cream), and Shah Jahan (for the orderly colourful plants on cream ground). Visually, these borders hold the album sequence together, with their designs of great vivacity. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on album page with gold-outlined floral borders, portrait of Shah Jahan on a globe with his four sons, signed and later also inscribed Balchand (recto), Persian calligraphy signed Mir `Ali ("faqir al-haqir Mir `Ali al-Katib"), bird and flower illumination behind poetry signed Dawlat (verso), from the Minto Album, calligraphy possibly Bukhara (Uzbekistan), c. 1505-45, portrait Agra, c. 1628-30, album page Agra, India, c. 1630-1640.

Mughal-Library