- Title
- Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627)
- Date Made
- 1620-1625
- Medium
- Ink and opaque watercolor on paper
- Dimensions
- 4 1/8 x 2 1/8 in. (10.48 x 5.4 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.83.1.5
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) was born in 1569. His birth name was Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim. He was known as Shah Salim during his rebellion from his father Emperor Akbar (r. 1605-1627), when he established an independent court at Allahabad in 1600-1604. He had been given the name of Salim in honor of Shaikh Salim Chishti (1478–1572), a revered Sufi saint in whose abode he was born in Sikri, near Agra. In this sensitive nim qalam (half-pen) lightly tinted drawing, Jahangir wears a delicately colored cloth turban (pagri) topped with a feather plume (jigha). He wears a pierced pearl earring indicating that he is an ‘ear-bored slave’ or follower of the Sufi saint Khwaja Muin al-Din Chishti (1143–1236), which he began wearing in August 1614 after crediting the saint with his recovery from a severe illness. Around his neck he wears two strands of pearls, an amulet case (see M.76.2.25), and what may be a miniature portrait (shast). He wears a long white coat (jama) with a border matching his turban decoration and a waist sash with a bird-headed knife suspended from it. In his right hand he holds a white jade wine cup (see M.76.2.1). His left hand grasps the grip of a “Firangi” (European) straight sword with a basket hilt and pommel spike.
A closely similar drawing of Jahangir wearing a miniature portrait pendant and an archer’s thumb ring (see AC1995.168.1) instead of holding a wine cup, and grasping the same style sword is in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (81.230).
- Selected Bibliography
- Markel, Stephen. Mughal and Early Modern Metalware from South Asia at LACMA: An Online Scholarly Catalogue. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2020. https://archive.org/details/mughal-metalware (accessed September 7, 2021).
- Komaroff, Linda, editor. Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books, 2023.
