"Portrait of Sayyid Abu'l Muzaffar Khan, Khan Jahan Barha", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

55.121.10.5 verso–Calligraphy

Hazrat Mir- Husayni–God bless his soul!–says:

The letter that drops from the pen–
It is evident what appears from it.
The letter is what God
Pours on the servant's heart.
Written by the poor Mir-'Ali the scribe [al-katib],
may God cover his faults!

This is a mu'amma (riddle), a form of which Amir Husayni was the undisputed master in Timurid Herat. He died in 1498, and the formula used after his name shows that Mir-'Ali penned this page after his death. I was not able to find a correct solution for the riddle.

The page is surrounded by several fragments of Persian ghazals–left border: a ghazal by Suhayli without its first linesi right border: a ghazal by Asafii lower border: the matla' (introductory verse) of another ghazal. Suhayli and Asafi both belonged to the court of Husayn Bayqara.

Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]

THE GOLD PLANTS on the pink ground in this border are less densely spaced than on the recto border (pl. 66 in this volume). However, the same plant with leaflike oval flowers appears on verso and recto, indicating that the same painter created both borders. Here insects fly among the plants, while tulips and narcissi appear in the bottom border. The only other leaf with gold plants on a blue ground on the portrait side and gold plants on a pink ground on the calligraphy side is MMA fol. 4 (pls. 2I and 22 in this volume). That leaf and the present one were probably from the same original album.

Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]

55.121.10.5 recto–Sayyid Abu'l-Muzaffar Khan, Khan-Jahan Barha

INSCRIBED: (in Shahjahan's hand) shabih-i
khub-i Sayyid Khan-Jahan Barha, 'amal-i
La'lchand (a good portrait of Sayyid Khan-Jahan
Barha, done by La'lchand)

SAYYID ABU'L-MUZAFFAR KHAN joined Prince Sultan-Khurram (Shahjahan) in the 1620 Deccan campaign and impressed the prince greatly with his feats of bravery in battle. The Sayyid also joined Shahjahan in his rebellion against Jahangir in 1623–24.

When Shahjahan came to the throne, he gave Sayyid Abu'l-Muzaffar Khan the rank of 4000/3000, presented him with 100,000 rupees as a gift, and appointed him governor of Gwalior. He took part in the various expeditions against Khan-Jahan Lodi and the campaign against the Nizamshah in the Deccan, for gallantry during which he was raised to the rank of 5000 and given the title Khan-Jahan. He was deputed, along with 'Abdullah Khan Bahadur and Khan-Dauran, to put an end to the rebellion of Jujhar Singh Bundela. He spent the last few years of his life between his fief in Gwalior and court. In 1645 he was stricken with paralysis and died after a few months.

Shahnawaz Khan, the author of Maasir al-umara, says that, unlike the autocratic and cruel 'Abdullah Khan, Khan-Jahan Barha "had a great name and was possessed of much character and generosity. He spent his life with honor. To every one of the royal servants who was associated with him he gave villages out of his fief. He was very gentle and considerate."[1]

Wheeler M. Thackston in [Welch et al. 1987]

LA'LCHAND was one of the lesser painters in Shahjahan's academy. His failings become instructively evident when one compares his pictures to those of major masters. He was an industrious if impatient or even hasty craftsman, capable of maintaining the high standards of the imperial ateliers only in single portraits; his larger figural compositions are accomplished in their parts but suffer from overall disunity and irresolution. This is apparent in an inscribed miniature for the Windsor Padshahnama (fol. 46v; Appendix, fig. 26) showing Prince Khurram (Shahjahan) receiving the submission of Maharana Amar Singh of Mewar. This episode took place in 1615 and was painted for the Tuzuk-i Jahangiri by Nanha;[2] La'lchand relied upon the earlier miniature, from which he copied the overall composition and the principal figures. Prince Khurram, the rana, and their immediate surroundings–such as the striped bolster–were scrupulously taken from the earlier miniature, but most of the courtiers and attendants farther from the throne were replaced from La'lchand's stock of likenesses. A few eminent courtiers,
moreover, appear in La'lchand's version not as they looked to Nanha in 1615 but in up-to-date likenesses.

When seen in groups, La'lchand's dour, uninvolved figures seem awkward, their legs slightly–but disconcertingly– too long or too short and their heads too big or too small. Just as his overall designs lack spatial logic and architectonic cohesiveness, his courtiers, textiles, and elephants alternate between taut roundness of form and inconsistent flatness. However finely executed, arabesques fail to sparkle, are uninventive and flabby. Pigments are applied with whimsical unevenness, some thin, others thick, producing a softly mottled appearance that suffers in comparison to the precise, enameled clarity of greater artists.[3]

A crowded miniature by Bola in the Windsor Padshahnama (fol. 70r; Appendix, fig. 27), which shows Shahjahan being weighed against sacks of coins or gems while receiving his sons and courtiers, includes a nearly identical portrait of Khan-Jahan Barha, standing among the higher courtiers, just below the throne platform. Although the present likeness is livelier and more convincing (hence closer to a study from life), the similarities are startling, down to the precise stance and pose of hands and the same jeweled turban ornament and patka (sash). At least as early as the Jahangir period, standard likenesses were pooled by court artists for duplication as needed; even the most admired artists, such as Abu'l-Hasan, sketched notable events as they occurred or reconstructed them soon thereafter from the accounts of participants and witnesses.[4] Moreover, inasmuch as the Mughals maintained detailed records–times and places of receptions, lists of visitors, gifts given and received, and noteworthy incidents–information was accessible to painters for the reconstruction of historical assemblies and events.


Stuart Cary Welch in [Welch et al. 1987]

THE CALLIGRAPHIC fragments contain in the upper line a ghazal by Asafi, in the lower part the last lines of a ghazal by Amir Khusrau,[5] and in the left part a quatrain which is so amusingly unrelated to the portrait of the successful courtier that it is worth translating:

Woe over this time when the virtuous people
Cannot find a single piece of bread with a thousand tricks!
The stupid have now reached [the highest sphere, that of]
Saturn,
But only the sigh of the virtuous reaches Saturn!

Here the poet elliptically observes that the stupid have reached the apogee of success, while the virtuous people, in deep abjection, heave a sigh so strong that it reaches to the highest sphere.

The use of such inappropriate lines shows that the craftsmen in the atelier apparently pasted the cutout verses wherever they found a suitable space.

Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]

THIS RECTO portrait has the margin number 36, thus placing it in Group A. The borders around the portrait have very dense gold flowers on a blue ground. Certain idiosyncrasies–the predilection for particularly leafy plants, for serrated leaves, and for long stems, as well as the handling of shading–are characteristic of this painter. Two of the plants, one in the middle of the left margin and the second one row up from the bottom, are poppy types with a dianthus at the left center of the outer margin and an iris at the right of the outer margin slightly above center. The most distinctive plant in the upper left comer may be a Lunavia. The wild-looking plant in the right center of the lower border may be intended for a parrot tulip.

This leaf could not have belonged to Album I. In that album a portrait with the margin number 36 would have to have a gold-on-pink border.


Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]

Footnotes:

1. Shahnawaz Khan, Samsam al-Dawla, and 'Abd al-Hayy. Maasiru-l-umara; Being Biographies of the Muhammadan and Hindu Officers of the Timurid Sovereigns of India from 1500 to About 1780 A.D. Trans. H. Beveridge. Vols. 1, 2. Rev. ed. Calcutta, 1941–52, I, p. 795.

2. Nanha's picture is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (I.S. 185–I984). See Skelton, Robert. In "Recent Acquisitions." The V&.A Album (London), 4 (1985), p. 16.


3.Although fol. 46v is La'lchand's only signed illustration in the Padshahnama, others can be attributed to him on stylistic grounds: fol. 97v, Shahjahan Receives Muhammad 'Ali Beg. Ambassador from Shah Safi; fol. 123r, Marriage Procession of Prince Dara-Shikoh (left half); fols. 125v and 126r, Marriage Procession of Prince Shah Shuja'; and fol. 217v, Celebration hy Night of the Marriage of Prince Aurangzeb to the Daughter of Shahnawaz Khan.

4· See Welch, Stuart Cary, India! Art and Culture 1300–1900. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, no. 117, for Abu'l-Hasan's drawing of an episode during a hunt.

5. Amir Khusrau Dihlawi. Divan-i kamil. Ed. Mahmud Darvish. Teheran, 1965, no. 827.

Signature: 55.121.10.5 verso: In Persian, in lower left triangle:
Written by the poor Mir 'Ali the scribe may God cover his faults

Inscription: 55.121.10.5 recto:
In Persian, on the pink and gold border (in Shah Jahan's hand):
A good portrait of Sayyid Khan Jahan Barha, done by Lalchand

Marking: 55.121.10.5 recto: margin number '36' is inscribed in the gilt margin

Jack S. Rofe, Scotland (in 1929; sale, Sotheby's, London,December 12, 1929, to Kevorkian); [ Hagop Kevorkian, New York, from 1929]; [ Kevorkian Foundation, New York, until 1955; gift and sale to MMA]

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Emperor's Album: Images of Mughal India," October 21, 1987–February 14, 1988, nos. 65 and 66.

Welch, Stuart Cary, Annemarie Schimmel, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, and Wheeler M. Thackston. The Emperors' Album: Images of Mughal India. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. nos. 65, 66, pp. 214–17, ill. verso pl. 65 (b/w); recto pl. 66 (color).