Chitarman (Mughal painter)

Chitarman's best-known work is the portrait of Dara Shikoh dated 1049 AH/1639–40 (Pierpont Morgan Library), a powerful image enhanced by an oval aureole around "the doomed prince"; beneath the prince's feet the painter wrote khakipa, "dust under the feet", in humility. Milo Cleveland Beach notes that an aureoled Mughal prince is unusual except as a retrospective reference to an emperor's life before accession, but there are examples for Dara as the proclaimed heir. ²

Attributed works include Dara Shikoh in the Minto Album, about 1645, inscribed "A good likeness of Baba Dara Shikoh, painted by Chitarman", and an equestrian portrait of Dara. ^{3 2} His paintings after 1645 and his last portraits are all drawings — sensitive, highly controlled, technically traditional — among them two portraits in an album dedicated in 1661–62 and one of Islam Khan Rumi, who came from Turkey in 1669 and entered Aurangzeb's service, about 1670. ^{2 4} Beach cites his Dara of 1639 as an example of Shah Jahan-period modelling so careful that it gives figures a new vividness and formal strength. ¹