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Lot Essay
The army of Timur met that of Tuqtamish Khan, the Khan of the Golden Horde, on 23 Jumada II AH 797⁄15 April 1395 AD, on the river Terek in the north Caucasus. When it became apparent that Timur’s army was on the verge of victory, Tuqtamish Khan fled (for a translation of this episode, see Cherefeddin Ali (Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi), The History of Timur Bec, 2 vols., London 1723, vol. 1, p. 497).
This was the second great battle between these two adversaries. The first, on the Kondurcha river in Samara province, southern Russia, had ended in a hard-fought victory for Timur. Here again the two sides were evenly matched, but in the course of the battle some amirs from the Golden Horde went over to Timur’s side, resulting in a rout from which Tuqtamish Khan and the Golden Horde never recovered.
Mukund (also transliterated as Makand) was one of the leading lights in the very large atelier of over one hundred artists assembled by Akbar. He was singled out for individual mention by Abu’l Fazl, appearing seventh in the listing of the most important artists (Abu’l Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, quoted at length in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image, Washington DC: Freer Gallery, 1981, p.24). While he is not known to have worked in the earliest projects, at the moment that his name first appears, in the early 1580s, he is already clearly the leading artist in the 1582-86 Jaipur Razmnama (Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II City Palace Museum, Jaipur, no inv. no.) being entrusted with the design of twelve paintings, six of which he also painted, and working up a further three from designs by others. He worked on a succession of projects over the following twenty years, being a named artist contributing designs and portraits in the Tarikh-i Khandan-i Timuriyya (1584; Khoda Baksh Public Library, Patna, No.551; HL 107) and the first Akbarnama dating from 1590-95 (of 1590-95, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IS.2:6-1896, IS.2:25-1896 etc). The middle years of the 1590s were particularly active for Mukund as he worked on the 1594 Ramayana for Hamida Banu Begum (Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, MS.20.2000), the 1595 Baharistan of Jami (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Elliott 254), the Khamsa of Nizami of the same year (British Library, London, Or.12208) and, as one of the most heavily used artists involved, the Jami al-Tawarikh, 1596 (Golestan Palace Library, Tehran 2254-0347, see also ‘The Mourning of Aqaba Khan’s death’, a dispersed folio from the same manuscript in Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi). On this work again he was mostly selected for his ability in designing the composition and for his skilled portraiture. Within the same twelve months he also worked on the Anwar-i Suhaili (Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi), and he appears again as an artist on the later Akbarnama probably commissioned in honour of Abu’l Fazl’s death in 1604 (British Library, London, Or.3714 (1 folio) and Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, In 03 (3 folios)). He also contributed the faces in another painting from this copy of the Akbarnama that was on the London market (with Simon Ray, 2009).
His success as a portrait painter meant that he was also separately commissioned to paint a number of portraits of the imperial household including four signed examples, one of which is of the emperor Akbar himself (Som Prakash Verma, Mughal Painters and Their Work, 1994, pp.304-308).
This was the second great battle between these two adversaries. The first, on the Kondurcha river in Samara province, southern Russia, had ended in a hard-fought victory for Timur. Here again the two sides were evenly matched, but in the course of the battle some amirs from the Golden Horde went over to Timur’s side, resulting in a rout from which Tuqtamish Khan and the Golden Horde never recovered.
Mukund (also transliterated as Makand) was one of the leading lights in the very large atelier of over one hundred artists assembled by Akbar. He was singled out for individual mention by Abu’l Fazl, appearing seventh in the listing of the most important artists (Abu’l Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, quoted at length in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image, Washington DC: Freer Gallery, 1981, p.24). While he is not known to have worked in the earliest projects, at the moment that his name first appears, in the early 1580s, he is already clearly the leading artist in the 1582-86 Jaipur Razmnama (Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II City Palace Museum, Jaipur, no inv. no.) being entrusted with the design of twelve paintings, six of which he also painted, and working up a further three from designs by others. He worked on a succession of projects over the following twenty years, being a named artist contributing designs and portraits in the Tarikh-i Khandan-i Timuriyya (1584; Khoda Baksh Public Library, Patna, No.551; HL 107) and the first Akbarnama dating from 1590-95 (of 1590-95, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IS.2:6-1896, IS.2:25-1896 etc). The middle years of the 1590s were particularly active for Mukund as he worked on the 1594 Ramayana for Hamida Banu Begum (Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, MS.20.2000), the 1595 Baharistan of Jami (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Elliott 254), the Khamsa of Nizami of the same year (British Library, London, Or.12208) and, as one of the most heavily used artists involved, the Jami al-Tawarikh, 1596 (Golestan Palace Library, Tehran 2254-0347, see also ‘The Mourning of Aqaba Khan’s death’, a dispersed folio from the same manuscript in Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi). On this work again he was mostly selected for his ability in designing the composition and for his skilled portraiture. Within the same twelve months he also worked on the Anwar-i Suhaili (Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi), and he appears again as an artist on the later Akbarnama probably commissioned in honour of Abu’l Fazl’s death in 1604 (British Library, London, Or.3714 (1 folio) and Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, In 03 (3 folios)). He also contributed the faces in another painting from this copy of the Akbarnama that was on the London market (with Simon Ray, 2009).
His success as a portrait painter meant that he was also separately commissioned to paint a number of portraits of the imperial household including four signed examples, one of which is of the emperor Akbar himself (Som Prakash Verma, Mughal Painters and Their Work, 1994, pp.304-308).