- Title
- Europeans Embracing
- Date Made
- circa 1590
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 5 1/2 x 3 3/8 in. (13.97 x 8.57 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.83.105.20
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Despite the prevalence of portraits of Europeans in Mughal and Rajput painting, their representations are not as straightforward as one might first imagine. Presumably inspired by a European print or prints yet to be identified, this Mughal portrayal of Europeans Embracing from c. 1590 epitomizes the hybrid creative process underlying such images. Foreign figural types are characteristically depicted in dramatic postures and wear a mix-matched assortment of European Renaissance garb plucked from a variety of visual sources. These figures are often set in a Westernized landscape featuring diminishing perspective and European-style architecture.
Here, the bearded gentleman wears a 16th-century English “city flat cap” made of wool, the mustachioed man wears what is presumably a type of béret common to several northern European countries, and the man facing forward wears a feathered toque similar to that shown in M.80.6.7. The mustachioed man wears a shirt with lace cuffs fashionable in England and Wales during the Tudor period (1485–1603). Both embracing men wear leather leggings known as buskins. Rather than their customary capes, the Europeans have been given long flowing shawls.
The exotic appearance of the outlanders is further emphasized here by the unusual full-frontal visage of the central figure. Indian artists of this period were not experienced at representing the human face from this perspective and such portrayals often seem to border on caricature to modern viewers.
