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 Where These Paintings Were Made
These paintings were made in different parts of the Indian sub-continent for patrons of various
kingdoms. When the Mughals, originally from lands in western and central Asia, established rule
on the sub-continent in the 16th century, they encountered kingdoms of varying sizes, cultural
histories, languages, and pictorial traditions. Kingdoms in Rajasthan, the Panjab, and the Pahari
region were ruled by Rajputs, Hindus of the warrior caste. These kingdoms produced what the great
scholar and collector Ananda Coomaraswamy called an "aristocratic folk art" that was used
The Mughals were descendants of Timur (Tamerlane) and Jenghiz Khan with strong cultural ties to Persia, and they were Muslims. They introduced a tradition of actively sponsored court ateliers producing paintings to document and glorify the activities of the ruler of the state. They also brought with them the practice of using paper as a ground for painting. A flow of artists, techniques, styles, and new subjects among the Mughal, Rajput, and Deccani kingdoms produced a flowering of painting on the sub-continent that remains one of its most splendid achievements.
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primarily for illustration of Hindu religious texts on palm leaves and for murals on the walls of
temples. The vast central plateau of India known as the Deccan was occupied by several
different Islamic states, formed before the Mughal conquest. Deccani courts maintained
ateliers (workshop studios) of artists open to stimuli from various sources within and
outside of Asia.
