- Title
- Prince at Rest
- Date Made
- circa 1600-1605 (border: circa 1608)
- Medium
- Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 13 1/2 x 8 3/8 in. (34.29 x 21.27 cm); Image: 9 1/4 x 4 5/8 in. (23.5 x 11.75 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.84.32.7
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Attributed to the great Mughal painter Miskin (active late 1570s-circa 1604), this nim qalam (half-pen) lightly tinted drawing likely depicts Prince Salim (the future Emperor Jahangir, r. 1605-1627). Pratapaditya Pal (1993) has suggested that this folio may be from a Shikarnama (Hunting Album) prepared for Salim (see also M.83.137). Salim rests in a rocky landscape teaming with wildlife while he observes a dying or dead Saluki dog, perhaps injured in the hunt. His richly caparisoned steed waits beside him. A retainer hands him a bow and arrows. The remainder of the composition consists of genre scenes. In the left foreground, two European scholars converse while a young acolyte listens. In the right foreground, a man prepares kindling for his campfire. In the upper right corner, a group of Hindu ascetics sits outside of a temple and cave, while another mendicant climbs the stairs to a small shrine. There is a sprawling city in the hazy distance. In the upper left corner, a herd of antelope graze in a field below a mountain shrine.
This folio has been remounted within an elaborate gilded border with flowering vines festooned with the heads of fantastic beasts. It was originally part of a Farhang-i Jahangiri, a dictionary presented to Jahangir in 1608 (see M.73.5.535–.537). The Persian inscription along the left margin pertains to the dictionary, not to the drawing.
For a somewhat rote copy of this drawing attributed to the 19th century, see M.72.83.1.
- Selected Bibliography
- Schmitz, Barbara, ed. After the Great Mughals: Painting in Delhi and the Regional Courts in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Mumbai, India: Marg Publications, 2002.
- Rosenfield, John. The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Indian Painting, vol.1. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.
- Heeramaneck, Alice N. Masterpieces of Indian Painting : From the Former Collections of Nasli M. Heeramaneck. New York: A.N. Heeramaneck, 1984.
