Bishan Das

Jahangir records in his memoirs that he sent with his ambassador Khan Alam to Persia a painter named Bishan Das, "unequalled in his age for taking likenesses", to portray the shah and the chief men of his state; he drew most of them, and the shah's likeness so well that the shah's own servants praised it, and he was rewarded with an elephant. ¹ Khan Alam stayed until 1029 AH/1620, so, Milo Cleveland Beach points out, Bishan Das was absent from India during the middle, artistically rich, years of the reign. ¹

An inscription in the Gulshan Album borders says he was a nephew of Nanha, though the two were of about the same age. His earliest known work is in two imperial manuscripts of the 1590s, and by the first decade of the seventeenth century he was eminent enough to be among the painters portrayed by Daulat in the album's margins. ^{1 2} Beach describes his dark earth palette and free, unselfconscious line that gives figures warmth and animation, and finds the variety of personalities in The Birth of Jahangir, attributed to him, about 1620, extraordinary — especially the harem women, usually shown by formula. He cares less for space and shading than Abu'l Hasan or Govardhan; characterisation and gesture give his figures life. ^{3 1} The pictures of Khan Alam meeting Shah Abbas attributed to him do not, for Beach, have the quality to guarantee his hand; many are likely copies. ¹