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Collections

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Capture of Daulatabad Fort in 1633: a) Emperor Shah Jahan Watches the Assault on Daulatabad Fort; b) Capture of Daulatabad Fort, Folios from the Padshahnama (Chronicle of the King of the World)circa 1800

Not on view
Mughal manuscript painting of a military siege, with cannon fire against a massive red fortress wall and figures in brightly colored robes on the battlefield below, framed by lines of Persian or Urdu script
Mughal manuscript painting with lines of Nastaliq script above and below; a turbaned figure on a white horse, shaded by a canopied umbrella, leads a mounted procession of attendants in richly colored robes across an ochre landscape with pink rocky outcroppings and a blue sky; spears and parasols visible among the retinue.
Artist or Maker
Unknown
Title
Capture of Daulatabad Fort in 1633: a) Emperor Shah Jahan Watches the Assault on Daulatabad Fort; b) Capture of Daulatabad Fort, Folios from the Padshahnama (Chronicle of the King of the World)
Place Made
India, Delhi, Mughal Empire
Date Made
circa 1800
Medium
Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
Dimensions
a) Sheet: 11 7/16 x 6 1/2 in. (29.05 x 16.51 cm); Image: 6 7/8 x 4 1/16 in. (17.46 x 10.31 cm); b) Sheet: 11 7/16 x 6 1/2 in. (29 x 16.5 cm); Image: 6 3/4 x 4 3/8 in. (17.14 x 11.11 cm)
Credit Line
Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch Collection
Accession Number
M.45.3.545a-b
Classification
Drawings
Collecting Area
South and Southeast Asian Art
Curatorial Notes

The Padshahnama (Chronicle of the King of the World) was written by Abdul Hamid Lahawri (or Lahori, d. 1654). In 1648 he completed the first two decades of the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658). The original album, the Padshahnama of 1656-1657 now in The Royal Library, Windsor Castle (RCIN 1005025), narrates only the first decade of Shah Jahan’s reign. The colophon states that the text was copied by the scribe Muhammed-Amin of Mashhad in AH 1067 (1657-1658 CE). Presumably due to the usurpation of Prince Aurangzeb (1618-1707) in 1658, the album was likely never assembled in Shah Jahan’s lifetime. Milo Beach (1997) hypothesizes that it was assembled between the death of Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) in 1707 and the sack of Delhi in 1739 by the Iranian King Nadir Shah (r. 1736-1747). LACMA’s six double-paged folios are from a manuscript attributed to circa 1800 during the reign of Emperor Shah Alam II (r. 1760-1806). Rather than the earlier individualized realistic representations being copied, this later manuscript has new illustrations with generic figures and settings.

This double-page folio illustrates the capture of Daulatabad Fort near Aurangabad, Maharashtra in 1633. On the right (a), Shah Jahan oversees the assault mounted on a steed with barding or body armor. In the facing page on the left (b), cannons are fired at the fort, which is rendered as a fortified palace rather than the actual dramatic mountain fortress.

See also M.45.3.542a-b and M.45.3.543a-b.