The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India 1600–1660

The Grand Mogul is the catalogue of an exhibition shown at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (September–November 1978), then at the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Asia House Gallery, New York, until June 1979, written by Milo Cleveland Beach. ^{2 3} It focuses on the central achievement of the Mughal school — the exploration of naturalism in the early seventeenth century — drawing entirely on American collections. ⁴

An introduction on the patrons, from Babur to Aurangzeb, the characteristics of Mughal painting, and painting under Jahangir and Shah Jahan is followed by a catalogue of manuscripts and albums — the Allahabad manuscripts, the Akbar-nama of 1604, the albums of Jahangir, the Jahangir-nama, the Gulistan of Sa'di, the albums of Shah Jahan and the Padshah-nama — and then by sixteen painters in alphabetical order, among them Abu'l Hasan, Mansur, Govardhan and Payag, each with "further major attributions" the author trusts and "other attributions" he trusts less. ^{1 5}

For the author, painting under Jahangir was naturalistic, absorbed in the individual and close observation, while painting under Shah Jahan used perfected technique to reassert deeper Indian attitudes — the culmination of the style rather than its decline — even though Mughal painting was in decline in that Shah Jahan was not an involved patron. ^{6 7}