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London ,INDIAN PORTRAITS, which acquired a distinct Indian personality under the Mughals, have not only been about religion and kings. Courtesans, transvestites, commoners like musicians, miniaturists, soldiers, holy men and nautch girls are all there captured for posterity.

Three centuries of Indian portraiture, starting from the Mughals in 1560 till the East Indian Company in 1860, cover the growth of portrait painting in India, which is quite distinct from the European traditions. “Under Emperor Akbar, portraiture got a distinct Indian identity with heavy Iranian influence,” Rosemary Crill, co-curator of the first-ever exhibition of Indian portraits, told this newspaper. “These portraits have a rich and complex history, with influences from Iran and Europe as well as local Hindu and Muslim traditions,” Crill said.
“It was really at Abkar’s court that the idea of painting real people was developed. He wanted to have a record of all his courtiers and all the people who worked for him and portraiture really started to come alive and to be made seriously for documentary purposes in his reign,” Crill said.
The exhibition comprises of 60 portraits, drawn from collections in the UK, USA and Europe, and has been co-curated by London art dealer Kapil Jariwala. The star attraction at the exhibition is a huge Mughal cloth painting of Jahangir, holding a globe, measuring six feet in height. Crill and Jariwala claim that the life-size painting in gold and water colours, is the largest painting to come from the Mughal empire.

SARJU KAUL