Mal, the son of Amar Singh, painted by an artist named Nanha. Amar Singh was the Rānā of Mewār, who in 1614 submitted to the imperial army, much to Jahāngīr's satisfaction; for Akbar, though he captured Chitor, could never force the Rānā himself to his knees. Jahāngīr attempted to conciliate the Rajputs in the same way as his father had done, and had marble statues of the Rānā and his son Karan put up in the imperial palace at Agra. The other son, whose portrait was added to Jahāngīr's collection, is not mentioned by name in his memoirs.[1]
There are no traces of the calligraphist's technique in this painting—it is a real painter's picture. The contours are sharply defined, but the original outline is wholly merged in the subsequent painting. It is possible that European pictures, which Jahāngīr admired and gave to his painters to copy, may have influenced the artist's manner. But it is more likely that the natural development of the indigenous Indian school since the time of Ajantā produced this result. In the broad but subtle modelling of the forms, and the minute finish of the gold brocade and other ornamental accessories, the painter's technique is closely allied to the later style of the Ajantā school.
Another great master of Jahāngīr's court early in the seventeenth century, and afterwards in the service of Shah Jahān, was Manohar Dās, a Hindu painter whose work is well represented in the collection of Lady Wantage lately exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum. "A royal keeper leading a decoy antelope" by Manohar (Pl. LXXV) is perhaps
- ↑ Jahāngīr in his memoirs refers only to Surāj Mal (or Surāj Singh), the son of Rājā Bāsu of Kangra, who was alternately in favour and in disgrace at the court. Possibly he was the subject of the painting, for Jahāngīr, in his frequent drunken carouses, might easily have made a mistake in a detail of this kind.
