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Lot Essay
Shamsas of the Mughals were important in the royal aesthetics as adorned images of the sun, attached to the palace wall and illuminated in the evenings, described by Emperor Akbar’s (r. 1556-1605) court chronicler, Abu-l-Fazl, as “a divine light, which God directly transfers to kings,” and “an image of the Divine glory” (H. Blochmann, Ain-i Akbari, Calcutta, 1939, vol.I, p.50).
While the colouring of the illumination of later Mughal examples is warmer, earlier classic designs inspired by the Timurids retain cooler, striking golds and blues (Stuart Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300-1900, New York, 1985, p.236; on the style, see Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, 1989, pp. 189-207). An early prototype is the shamsa of the 1430-1 Diwan of Amir Khusraw Dihlavi copied for Ibrahim Sultan in Shiraz (Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi, 1982).
While the colouring of the illumination of later Mughal examples is warmer, earlier classic designs inspired by the Timurids retain cooler, striking golds and blues (Stuart Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300-1900, New York, 1985, p.236; on the style, see Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, 1989, pp. 189-207). An early prototype is the shamsa of the 1430-1 Diwan of Amir Khusraw Dihlavi copied for Ibrahim Sultan in Shiraz (Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi, 1982).