Nanha (Mughal painter)

Nanha was the uncle of the painter Bishan Das, though the two were of about the same age. He was painting by at least the mid-1580s, and his work is found in almost all the major manuscripts of Akbar's reign. ¹

Milo Cleveland Beach notes that Mughal painters had specialties of subject: three of Nanha's greatest works for Jahangir show lions in combat with men — a folio of the Anwar-i-Suhaili (1604–10), an attributed Jahangir-nama page of an event of 1615, and Lion Attacking a Man. The narrative dominates; his palette is earthy brown and green, his touch light and quiet, unlike Mansur's brilliant colour and arranged composition. ¹ The final author page of the Diwan of Amir Hasan Dihlavi (Allahabad, 1602) may be his, a perfect transition, for Beach, between the taste of Akbar and that of Jahangir. ¹

Portraits on Shah Jahan's album pages suggest he worked for that emperor too; his last works are technically superb, intense characterisations set in the artificial floral settings of the period. Beach sees him as always following prevailing patterns and growing ever more skilful, but not an innovator like Payag or Abu'l Hasan. ¹