.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
On his way to retake the city of Qarshi (in present day Uzbekistan) in AH 767/1365/6 AD, after it was occupied by the army of the Qaraunas leader Amir Husayn, Timur crossed the Amuya (Oxus) river. Timur and forty of his men forded the river themselves and then surrounded the village of Khustar(?) so that news should not get out of their advance. Timur then sent boats from the village to the other side of the river so that the rest of the army could cross (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.78).
Shiv Das was one of Abu’l Fazl’s “more than a hundred painters [in the Imperial atelier who] have become famous masters of the art, whilst the number of those who approach perfection, or of those who are middling, is very large” (Abu’l Fazl, Ain-I Akbari, quoted at length in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image, Washington DC: Freer Gallery, 1981, p.24). He was at the imperial workshop for a long period, around forty years. He is first named as an artist in the Daryabnama of 1580 (British Library, London, Or.4615), and produced small numbers of paintings for a number of the Imperial projects including the Iyar-i Danish of 1590-95 (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, In 04), the 1591 Baburnama (British Library, London, Or.3714), 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 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, W.613) and the Delhi Baburnama of 1597-8 (National Museum, New Delhi, 50.326).
The second half of his career appears to have been as a painter of separate pages. The latest example is a portrait of Mir Jumla which can be dated to 1618-20 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IM.121-1921). His masterpiece is probably a magnificent complicated composition of travellers arriving at a humble village (British Museum, London, 1920,0917,0.255 transferred from the British Library where it was part of album Or.1372), which demonstrates a full mastery of the stylistic developments under the emperor Jahangir in the first quarter of the 17th century.
Shiv Das was one of Abu’l Fazl’s “more than a hundred painters [in the Imperial atelier who] have become famous masters of the art, whilst the number of those who approach perfection, or of those who are middling, is very large” (Abu’l Fazl, Ain-I Akbari, quoted at length in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image, Washington DC: Freer Gallery, 1981, p.24). He was at the imperial workshop for a long period, around forty years. He is first named as an artist in the Daryabnama of 1580 (British Library, London, Or.4615), and produced small numbers of paintings for a number of the Imperial projects including the Iyar-i Danish of 1590-95 (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, In 04), the 1591 Baburnama (British Library, London, Or.3714), 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 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, W.613) and the Delhi Baburnama of 1597-8 (National Museum, New Delhi, 50.326).
The second half of his career appears to have been as a painter of separate pages. The latest example is a portrait of Mir Jumla which can be dated to 1618-20 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IM.121-1921). His masterpiece is probably a magnificent complicated composition of travellers arriving at a humble village (British Museum, London, 1920,0917,0.255 transferred from the British Library where it was part of album Or.1372), which demonstrates a full mastery of the stylistic developments under the emperor Jahangir in the first quarter of the 17th century.