Raja Man Singh, known as the Mirza Raja, was one of Akbar’s boon companions, a member of the circle the emperor called the Nauratan, or "nine jewels." He joined Akbar’s court in 1562, when Akbar married the eldest daughter of Raja Bihar Mal of Amber, who had adopted Man Singh. He was appointed governor of Bihar and later of Bengal. Under Jahangir, he served in the Deccan, where he died in 1614.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Portrait of Raja Man Singh of Amber
Date:ca. 1590
Geography:Attributed to India
Medium:Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions:H. 9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm) W. 5 5/8 in. (14.3 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Purchase, Gift of Jacques L. Galef and Bequest of Charles R. Gerth, by exchange, 1982
Object Number:1982.174
Raja Man Singh of Amber
Akbar's portrait artists were instructed to record their sitters' innermost natures, a task they sometimes carried out with embarrassing scrupulousness. Inasmuch as Raja Man Singh was one of Akbar's Nauratan, or Nine Jewels, his boon companions, one would not expect Akbar's artists to treat him less than admiringly, even though he and the emperor occasionally differed in opinion. He joined Akbar's court in 1562, when Akbar married the eldest daughter of Raja Bihar Mal of Amber, who had adopted Man Singh. Raja Man Singh received command of seven thousand horse, a very prestigious rank in the imperial hierarchy. Nevertheless, the senior Rajput nobleman, Rana Pratap Singh of Mewar, refused to eat with him—or even to receive him—on the grounds that he was a turncoat to the Rajput cause, in league with the despised Mughals.
Akbar ordered Man Singh to lead a Mughal army against the unyielding Rana Pratap; and at the Battle of Haldigat, twenty-two thousand Mewar warriors were slain. The rana escaped—much to the dismay of Akbar, who believed that Man Singh's loyalties to the Rajput cause interfered with duty. Raja Man Singh also distressed the emperor by refusing to join the Divine Faith, a religion devised by Akbar to strengthen the empire by unifying Muslims, Hindus, and other religious groups. Although a slight coolness developed between Akbar and Raja Man Singh, he was appointed governor of Bengal, a major post he held during the rest of the reign. Under Emperor Jahangir, he served in the Deccan, where he died during the ninth regnal year. Sixty wives mounted his funeral pyre in rites of sati.
This small portrait was part of an album prepared for Prince Khurram (later Shah Jahan), and it contained a number of calligraphies written in the prince's own hand, some of them dated 1611–12. Presumably, most of its miniatures, a few of which are as early as about 1575, were gifts from his grandfather, Akbar, who knew of the young prince and Man Singh's friendship.[1] The other side of the folio contains verses probably copied by the prince himself in characteristically Mughal Nasta'liq script tending toward Shikasta. Before Akbar's death, Man Singh tried to persuade him to appoint Prince Khurram his successor, bypassing the young man's father, Prince Salim, who inherited the throne as Emperor Jahangir. A final link between the old raja and Prince Khurram was forged after Khurram had come to the throne. On the death of his favorite wife, Mumtaz-Mahal, land that had belonged to Raja Man Singh was acquired as the site for her tomb—the Taj Mahal.
[Welch 1985]
Footnotes:
1. For Prince Khurram's album, see Welch, Stuart Cary. Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches. New York, 1976, pp. 34–35, no. 7; Beach, Milo Cleveland. The Grand Mogul. Ex. cat., Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978, p. 74.
Inscription: In Nastaliq, below painting: Portrait of Raja Man Singh In Nastaliq, above poetry: God is greater [than anything else]. In Nastaliq, on verso: Today it became again evening in separation from you, and my life is finished in the longing for your face. The evening prayer came, but my beloved did not come. Oh eye, be wakeful, for sleep is prohibited. Oh master, take your place in the quarter of piety, in the street of Being-a-Lover you cannot retain your good name.
(Translated by Annemarie Schimmel, 1984)
Hagop Kevorkian, New York (until d. 1962); The Hagop Kevorkian Fund, New York (1962–81; its sale, Sotheby's,London, April 27, 1981, lot 77, to Colnaghi); [ Colnaghi Oriental, London, 1981–82; sold to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "INDIA !," September 14–September 14, 1985, no. 107.
Findly, Ellison Banks, and Glenn D. Lowry. "Indian Miniatures in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum." In From the Courts of India. Worcester, Massachusetts: Worcester Art Museum, 1981. p. 26.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin vol. 40 (1982–1983). pp. 10–11, ill. (b/w).
Welch, Stuart Cary. India! Art and Culture 1300–1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985. no. 107, pp. 173–74, ill. p. 174 (color).
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