Art, patrons and their society

This lesson asks you to interpret art works to find their subject, purpose and meaning, and to identify ways works reflect the society that made them. The museum offers three cases: a painting made for a court, a style that formed in royal studios, and the glass industry that followed new capitals. Works from other times and places come from your class. ¹

For each record, write what the work shows, who ordered or made it, and what purpose the record suggests. Mark what the record says and what you are inferring.

Choose one feature of a work, such as who is shown or what materials were used, and say what it suggests about the society that made it. Say what else you would need to find out to be sure.

Look at the servants. The catalogue by Stuart Cary Welch says that the size of [[object/princes-of-the-house-of-timur|Princes of the House of Timur]], its new conception of portraiture and its close observation of cooks, waiters and minor courtiers reveal Humayun's effectiveness as a patron; no purely Safavid picture would record the gestures and expressions of servants so believably ². The painters had come at his invitation. In exile in 1544 Humayun stayed at the court of Shah Tahmasp, where he was thrilled by the shah's painters ^{3 4}. In 1546 he sent for them; they left Tabriz in 1548, joined him at Kabul in 1549 and in 1554 accompanied him on his return to India ².

Who is the central figure? The usual identification is Humayun. Michael Rogers has suggested that the painting was made at Kabul before Humayun's return to India, and that the central figure may be Babur in one of his garden palaces ². The record decides neither way.

The painting has been changed since it was made. It is cut down and partly repainted, and it is assigned to Abd al-Samad working under the influence of Mir Sayyid Ali, for the bold arm gestures, the flight of birds, the trees and the arrangement of forms in space ². The portraits of Akbar, Jahangir and Prince Khurram are imperial work of Jahangir's reign, datable to about 1607, when many other faces were retouched ². A lost foreground would have shown musicians and entertainers, Rogers points out ².

A painting of servants was made for a court. Give a reason from the record, and answer the objection that a painter could paint what he pleased: does a careful picture of cooks and waiters show more about the patron's taste or about the painter's eye?

• Princes of the House of Timur: the painting, its additions and its attribution.
• Mughal painting: the style that formed in the royal studios.
• Humayun: the patron who brought the painters to India.
• Glassmaking in the early Islamic world: the third case of this lesson, an industry that followed new capitals.

Read the records on Princes of the House of Timur and Mughal painting. Write a paragraph that explains one painting by its patron or its studio, and underline the sentence that comes from the record.