South Asian Studies
ISSN: 0266-6030 (Print) 2153-2699 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsas20
Memory and Monarchy: A Seventeenth-Century
Painting from Bijapur and its Afterlives
Deborah Hutton
To cite this article: Deborah Hutton (2016) Memory and Monarchy: A SeventeenthCentury Painting from Bijapur and its Afterlives, South Asian Studies, 32:1, 22-41, DOI:
10.1080/02666030.2016.1179433
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2016.1179433
Published online: 19 Jul 2016.
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South Asian Studies, 2016
Vol. 32, No. 1, 22–41, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2016.1179433
Memory and Monarchy: A Seventeenth-Century Painting
from Bijapur and its Afterlives
Deborah Hutton*
Department of Art and Art History, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA
The well-known Deccan painting, The House of Bijapur, completed c. 1680 by the artists Kamāl Muḥammad and
Chand Muḥammad, depicts eight of the ʿAdil Shahi rulers of Bijapur seated together in an imaginary dynastic meeting.
This article closely analyses the painting, as well as later iterations of its imagery, to examine how historical memory
of Bijapur and its Muslim rulers developed. The first half of the article focuses on the House of Bijapur itself, looking
at the artists’ use of composition, visual motifs, styles, and modes of dress in order to explore how court artists
working in the late seventeenth century visually defined the sultanate’s identity and that of each of its rulers, moving
backwards in time almost two hundred years. The second half of the paper traces the imagery’s later iterations: within a
few years of the painting’s creation, its distinctive imagery was being copied, collected, and circulated in environments
quite different from that of its origin. These later versions and the ways in which they were, and continue to be, linked
to historical re-imaginings provide a window into how the dynasty and its rulers came to be remembered in the
centuries after its demise.
Keywords: Deccan; ʿĀdil Shāh; ʿAdil Shahi; Bijapur; painting; historical memory; royal portraiture; Niccolao Manucci
Introduction
Among the many treasures in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s collection is a seventeenth-century
Deccani painting commonly called The House of
Bijapur (Figure 1) by the artists Kamāl Muḥammad
and Chand Muḥammad.1 The image is notable for its
size (at sixteen by thirteen inches, it is larger than most
manuscript paintings), its arresting lavender and saffron
landscape, and its subject matter: it depicts eight rulers
of the ʿAdil Shahi dynasty seated together on a carpet.
Technically, it is not all of the ʿAdil Shahi rulers, as the
artists left out the unfortunate Mallū ʿĀdil Khān (r.
1534–35), who ruled for a mere seven months before
he was deposed.2 The rest, from the dynasty’s founder,
Yūsuf ʿĀdil Khān (r. 1490–1510), to the very last ruler,
young Sikandar (r. 1672–86), are present. While portraits of individual ʿAdil Shahi rulers are common, no
other such imaginary, multi-generational scenes exist
amongst Bijapur’s surviving courtly paintings, making
this painting unique in that regard.
The fact that the work seems to be one of the last
courtly paintings attributable to Bijapur further adds to
its significance. It is dateable to c. 1680, when Sikandar
was twelve years old. 3 The following year, 1681,
marked the beginning of the end for ʿAdil Shahi
Bijapur; that year, the Mughal emperor Awrangzīb
ʿĀlamgīr shifted his court from Delhi to Aurangabad
*Email: dhutton@tcnj.edu
© 2016 The British Association for South Asian Studies
in order to achieve his long-standing goal of completely
subduing the Deccan. Bijapur, already weakened by
decades of attacks from the dynamic Maratha leader
Śivajī, internal power struggles, and an empty treasury,
was no match for the mighty Mughal armies. In 1686,
after a drawn-out fifteen month siege, the capital of
Bijapur fell to Awrangzīb’s forces. Sikandar was taken
into captivity, where he remained for the rest of his
short life.4 Thus, within a few years of the painting’s
completion, the sultanate it celebrated was gone. Stuart
Cary Welch, in characteristically evocative prose,
called the work ‘a painted curtain call’: the main characters appearing together for one last ovation before the
play ended and the stage went dark.5 Indeed, Bijapur’s
subsequent history makes it difficult not to read into the
picture a sense of wistful memorialization of something
not yet, but about to be lost.
That said, what the artists would have foreseen –
much less wanted to immortalize – about Bijapur’s
impending downfall is, to a large extent, unknowable.
The painting, however, does provide a valuable window into how the dynasty viewed itself and its history
at a particularly important juncture in time. A close
analysis of the work, then, allows us to see how court
artists working in the late seventeenth century visually
defined the sultanate’s identity and that of each of its
rulers, moving backwards in time almost two hundred
years.
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23
1. Kamāl Muḥammad and Chand Muḥammad, ‘The House of Bijapur’, Bijapur, c. 1680, 16-¼ by 12-13/16 inches, ink, opaque
watercolour, gold, and silver on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982.213, reproduced with permission.
24
Deborah Hutton
But the painting does not just provide a receding
view of historical memory. It also provides an outlook
in the other direction, into how the dynasty and its
rulers came to be remembered in the centuries after its
demise – for within a few years of the painting’s creation, its distinctive imagery was being copied, collected,
and circulated in environments quite different from that
of its origin. Versions of the imagery continued to be
created into the twentieth century, and these versions
are still commonly reprinted in histories of the ‘Adil
Shahis. Tracking the imagery’s later iterations, from the
1680s forward, and analysing their larger cultural and
visual contexts allows us to understand how historical
memory of Bijapur and its Muslim rulers developed.
In this paper, then, I investigate, as it were, the
view from both sides of the window. The first portion
of my essay focuses on the House of Bijapur itself,
looking at the artists’ use of composition, visual
motifs, styles, and modes of dress. Through this
close reading, I conclude that the artists drew on
elements of both Mughal painting and older Bijapuri
painting styles to present a distinct visual identity for
the ʿAdil Shahi kingdom as well as each of the individual rulers, and that, ultimately, this identity was
aimed not just at glorifying the dynasty, but also at
differentiating it from the Mughal Empire. The second half of the paper traces the imagery’s later iterations and their relationships to historical imaginings –
both popular and scholarly – of the sultanate. In many
regards, these later versions of the imagery reveal
Kamāl Muḥammad and Chand Muḥammad’s success
in creating lasting visual identities for the ʿAdil Shahi
sultans, ones that have very much shaped our historical memory of them, but not necessarily in ways the
artists originally intended.
In the introduction to Power, Memory, Architecture:
Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300–1600,
Richard Eaton and Phillip Wagoner state that their aim
is to consider objects ‘as dynamic texts that could, after
their creation, tell their own stories about how they
related to different communities over time’.6 Here, my
methodology is similar. I look at the imagery both at its
moment of creation, asking after the choices the artists
made and why, and in its later stages of existence, when
it was copied, altered, and reused. Like Eaton and
Wagoner, I try to let the imagery tell its own story
about how it ‘related to different communities over
time’.
A dynastic portrait
The House of Bijapur painting can be divided visually
into four registers: the top provides a picturesque landscape setting for the scene and the bottom serves as a
base, with three attendants and a horse positioned on
either side of a small staircase. The two middle registers
contain the main figures, with the dynasty’s patriarch,
Yūsuf ʿĀdil Khān (r. 1490–1510), the only figure to
span both of those middle registers. He sits enthroned
at the painting’s centre, with a sword in his left hand, a
key in his right, and his right foot resting on a globe.
Next to him, in the upper middle register framed above
by a row of eight green royal parasols, stands a figure,
sporting a Safavid-style turban, who seems to have just
handed the key to Yūsuf. In the other middle register,
demarcated by an ornate blue and gold floral carpet, sit
seven more Bijapuri rulers, each positioned on a low
golden throne. To Yūsuf’s right, from the centre out,
are Ismāʿīl ʿĀdil Khān (r. 1510–34), Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh
I (r. 1534–58), and ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh I (r. 1558–80). To
Yūsuf’s left, from the centre out are: Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh
II (r. 1580–1627), Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh (r. 1627–56),
ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh II (r. 1656–72), and, at the very edge,
young Sikandar ʿĀdil Shāh (r. 1672–86).
As stated earlier, such a multi-generation dynastic
portrait is unique among Bijapur’s surviving royal artworks. In all probability, the very concept of this type of
genealogical imagery as well as the layout of the figures
and the use of the globe and key motif all derived from
seventeenth-century Mughal painting. In what may be
the earliest Indo-Islamic instance of an imaginary
dynastic meeting in painted form (in which multiple
generations appear together in a single scene), it was
likely at the order of the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr (r.
1605–27) that the sixteenth-century painting,
Humāyūn’s Garden Party, was altered through overpainting to turn it into ‘a grand assembly’ of Timurid
and Mughal rulers from past and present gathered
together.7 The Mughals, who descended from Tīmūr,
were keen to visually stress their links to the earlier
Timurid rulers. This desire perhaps gave rise to such
imaginary multi-generational imagery, which continued
to be featured in paintings from Shāh Jahān’s reign (r.
1628–58).
In fact, the specific layout of the House of Bijapur
painting seems to directly reference Shah Jahani-era
genealogical paintings. For example, a painting by the
artist Govardhan, datable to c. 1630–40 and now in the
collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, depicts
Tīmūr handing the imperial crown to Bābur as
Humāyūn looks on.8 Notably, in the image, the main
figures are seated on thrones on a carpeted platform
with royal umbrellas above and attendants/courtiers
below, just as they are in the later House of Bijapur
painting.
The House of Bijapur’s globe and key imagery, similarly, can be traced back to painting from Jahāngīr’s
reign.9 As Sumathi Ramaswamy has pointed out, while
the globe was an imported European object, Mughal
South Asian Studies
artists quickly made it ‘their own’, employing it to show
Jahāngīr as the master of the world. In Mughal paintings,
only the emperor appeared with the globe, which was
‘most often physically connected to his body in some
fashion’.10 For example, in a darbar scene c. 1615, which
seems to be the earliest representation of Jahāngīr with a
globe, the emperor sits enthroned with the globe under
his feet and a key hanging from his sash. An inscription
on the painting reads, ‘The key of victory over the two
worlds is entrusted in his hand’ – the ‘two worlds’ referring to the temporal and spiritual realms.11 A pair of
seventeenth-century album paintings by the artist
Bichitr similarly employs the globe and key imagery to
suggest the linking of spiritual and temporal power. The
right-sided album page depicts Jahāngīr holding a globe
with a key in one hand and a sword in the other, while
the left-sided page portrays the Sufi Shaykh, Muʿīn alDīn Chishtī, holding a globe with a key and a crown. As
in the darbar painting, an inscription on each of the
paintings reads: ‘The key to the conquest of the two
worlds is entrusted to your hand.’12 Shaykh Chishtī,
who was long dead by the time the paintings were
made, thus, here embodied the spiritual authority undergirding Jahāngīr’s reign.
In the House of Bijapur, the use of the globe and key
motif and genealogical imagery carries similar intents,
except now the spiritual authority is Shiʿa, rather than
Sufi, and the temporal authority is Safavid, rather than
Timurid. A later inscription added to the House of
Bijapur painting identifies the background figure as
the Safavid ruler Shāh ʿAbbās (r. 1588–1629), but it is
much more likely that the figure was intended to be the
founder of the Safavid dynasty, Shāh Ismāʿīl (r.
1501–24), who was contemporary with Yūsuf ʿĀdil
Khān. Shāh Ismāʿīl declared Twelver Shiʿism the official
religion of Iran in 1502, and almost immediately thereafter, Yūsuf followed suit in Bijapur.13 Thus, the passing of the key stresses both Bijapur’s Shiʿi leanings and
the sultanate’s close political connections with Safavid
Iran. Additionally, the use of green for Yūsuf’s robe
seems a deliberate choice meant to enhance the sense
of his spiritual authority in founding the dynasty. The
lavender-pink of Shāh Ismāʿīl’s robes, the same shade as
the landscape, seems an equally deliberate choice, one
that articulates his relationship to the ʿAdil Shahis. That
is to say, while religiously and politically influential,
Shāh Ismāʿīl was nonetheless geographically and genealogically removed (unlike the Mughals’ relationship to
Tīmūr, the ʿAdil Shahis possessed no hereditary link to
the Safavids) – and, thus, in the painting, he is visually
prominent, but also very clearly positioned in the
background.
Conspicuous Mughal influence first appeared in
Bijapur’s art in the 1630s, paralleling the growing
Mughal presence, both politically and physically, in
25
the Deccan at the time: in 1635, Muḥammad ʿĀdil
Shāh was forced to sign a treaty with the Mughals, the
terms of which essentially made Bijapur a tributary
state.14 Portraits of Muḥammad from the 1630s onward
fully embrace the conventions of Shah Jahani portraiture. For example, a painting of the sultan with his
prime minister Ikhlāṣ Khān and an attendant
(Figure 2), datable to c. 1650, displays many of the
hallmarks of Shah Jahani-era painting.15 The artist
adopted more muted colours than found in earlier
Bijapur paintings, as well as more naturalistic shading,
replicated formal poses from Mughal portraiture,
including the strict profile view with golden halo
demarcating the ruler, and even depicted the sultan
with his Mughal-style floral sash tied in the Mughal
fashion.16
However, during the reign of Muḥammad’s successor, ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh II, there was a discernible move
away from a Mughal style and a return to brighter
colours and more exaggerated lines, particularly in portraits of the ruler, such as an image of ʿAlī II slaying a
tiger (Figure 3). In the c. 1660 painting, the sultan is
depicted with his characteristic exaggerated lotusflower eyes, magnificently arched eyebrows, and full
red lips.17 These stylized physical details afforded him
a regal appearance while also signifying a local Bijapuri
identity, in contrast to a Mughal hegemonic one.
The House of Bijapur painters spent the first part of
their careers working for Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh before
then serving as court artists for ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh II.18
Thus, their adoption of specific Mughal elements in
the painting was clearly a deliberate, strategic choice,
the point of which, I contend, was actually to draw out
the differences between the two dynasties – that is, to
present the ʿAdil Shahis as distinct to, but equally distinguished as, their northern neighbour. That meant, in
this case, that if the Mughals traced their heritage to the
Central Asian Sunni Timurids, then the ʿAdil Shahis
took pains to link themselves with the Persian Shiʿi
Safavids. Since the ʿAdil Shahi rulers were not actually
directly related to the Safavids in the same way that the
Mughals were to the Timurids, since the ʿAdil Shahis
vacillated between Shiʿa and Sunni Islam throughout the
dynasty’s existence, and since they also were important
patrons of local Sufis, the choice to stress the Safavid
Shiʿi spiritual underpinnings of the sultanate over other
aspects of their identity in this particular work must
have arisen from the strong desire to define Bijapur in
opposition to the encroaching Mughal Empire.
The select incorporation of older Bijapuri painting
elements, chiefly those dating to the reign of Ibrāhīm II,
reinforced the visual articulation of a distinctive ʿAdil
Shahi heritage in the image. For example, the distinctive colour palette of the House of Bijapur painting, with
its particular combination of lavender-pink, various
26
Deborah Hutton
2. Sultan Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh of Bijapur and his prime minister, Ikhlāṣ Khān, c. Bijapur, 1650, ink, opaque watercolour, and gold
on paper, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.76.2.35. www.lacma.org.
South Asian Studies
27
3. Sultan ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh II slays a tiger, Bijapur, c. 1660, 8-½ by 12-3/8 inches, ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper,
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, LI118.98, reproduced with permission.
shades of green, deep oranges, and gold is one that
became popular during the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. Likewise, the artists deliberately
recreated the distinctive background landscape motifs
popular in ʿAdil Shahi courtly painting seventy to ninety
years earlier, including the thick golden sky capped by a
band of blue and white clouds and pierced by lush green
trees and distant white palaces atop craggy hills.19
Notably, the House of Bijapur’s artists added a new
element to its landscape: a view of an ocean lying
beyond the hilltops. Some have suggested the inclusion
of the ocean refers to Goa, reminding viewers of the
short period when the ʿAdil Shahis owned the port,
before they lost it to the Portuguese in 1510.20 Since
the painting’s purpose was to represent Bijapur at its
grandest, such an interpretation makes sense. However,
the slice of ocean also serves as a clever compositional
device. Its triangular shape placed at top-centre acts as
an arrow directing the viewer’s gaze down to the key
being passed between Shāh Ismāʿīl and Yūsuf. The
artists repeatedly employed such compositional tools
to unify the disparate parts of the image and to underscore important details crucial to the overall message of
the work. For example, the artists chose to render
Ibrāhīm II’s and Yūsuf’s hands significantly lighter
than those of the other figures, thereby drawing the
viewer’s eye to them. Their placement forms a diagonal
line leading from Ibrāhīm II’s left hand, in which he
holds a mango, up to Yūsuf’s right hand, again leading
the viewer’s gaze back to the key.
At the same time, within this carefully crafted unity,
the artists gave each ruler a distinct visual presence.
Focusing first on the later four rulers (Figure 4), it is
clear that there was an established way to depict each of
them based on portraiture from their reigns, which the
artists took pains to recreate. These characteristic representations seem to be a mix of what we today classify as
‘style’ (e.g. the handling of line and shading), with
manners of dress and certain physical characteristics,
including skin tone. In other words, we see the same
28
Deborah Hutton
4. Detail showing Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II, Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh, ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh II, and Sikandar ʿĀdil Shāh. Kamāl Muḥammad
and Chand Muḥammad, ‘The House of Bijapur’, Bijapur, c. 1680, 16-¼ by 12-13/16 inches, ink, opaque watercolour, gold, and silver
on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982.213, reproduced with permission.
sort of intimate linkage between style and identity that
Molly Aitken so articulately identifies in her study of
Rajput portraiture.21 Sikandar is shown as slight, with
dark skin, and the same style of turban favoured by his
father.22 ʿAlī II has his characteristic curved eye, arched
eyebrow, and red-stained lips (Figure 3). Muḥammad’s
eye tilts slightly upward, with naturalistic shading
underneath, and he sports a Mughal-style floral sash,
typical in portraiture from his reign (Figure 2). All
three are in profile. In contrast, the artists have depicted
Ibrāhīm II in a three-quarters pose. They further distinguish Ibrāhīm through his pale skin, elongated face, and
the distinctive turban favoured during his reign.
This depiction of Ibrāhīm II had become standard
by the late seventeenth century, as illustrated by a posthumous portrait of the sultan dateable to c. 1675
(Figure 5);23 however, during his own life, portraits of
him were actually quite diverse.24 In addition to experiments with composition, style, and setting, court artists
depicted him sometimes bearded, sometimes smoothfaced, and at other times somewhere in between the
two. There is also considerable variation in his skin
tone and even the shape of his nose from image to
image. Works from the latter part of his reign often
shown him in profile, rather than the three-quarters
pose, and the style of his turban also changes.25 But
within fifty years of his death, there seems to have been
one set way of depicting him, as demonstrated in the
House of Bijapur painting and Figure 5: three-quarters
view, pale skinned, bearded, and wearing the distinctive
high-capped turban with wide gold band.
Most likely, the depiction was based on a particular
painting or paintings that had become well known and/
or widely circulated in the mid-seventeenth century,
South Asian Studies
5. Sultan Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II, Bijapur, c. 1675, ink, opaque
watercolour, and gold on paper, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, M.83.105.2. www.lacma.org.
such as a c. 1615 portrait of Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II
holding instruments in the collection of the British
Museum, which seems to have been the basis for the
c. 1675 posthumous portrait.26 The later image
(Figure 5) omits Ibrāhīm’s shawl as well as the green
handkerchief and castanets in his hands present in the
earlier portrait. Instead, he now holds a sprig of flowers,
his dried berry bead necklace has been swapped for
strands of pearls, and a jewelled ornament has been
added to his turban. These new details are present in
the House of Bijapur depiction as well. This standardization of his image, which is both based on, and slightly
altered from, his earlier portraits, suggests a historicization of Ibrāhīm II, that is, the formation of a collective
visual memory on which the House of Bijapur painters
29
drew. This memory seemed to relish in the distinctive
nature of his reign, while also reconfiguring him to
more squarely fit into visualizations of kingship current
in the late seventeenth century.
Moving from the right to the left side of the painting
(Figure 6), there is a noticeable difference in how the
artists have illustrated the earlier rulers compared to the
later sultans. The dress of each of the three earlier men
is quite distinct, but in terms of painting style and
physical appearance, their depictions are almost identical to one another. The noses and beards vary slightly,
but, other than that, it is essentially the same face
repeated three times. Even the skin tones are identical,
in contrast to the later rulers, each of whom is shown
with a distinct complexion. This repetition suggests that
the artists didn’t have existing visual representations of
these rulers on which to draw. Therefore, the only way
to differentiate them was through dress – more specifically, through modes of dress that connected them
visually to well-known aspects of their reigns.
For example, the Bijapur court historian Firishtah
describes Ismāʿīl as such a devoted follower of the
Safavids that, in 1519, he ordered his military officers
to wear the distinctive twelve-pointed red cap of the
Safavid troops (a sartorial reference to Twelver Shiʿism)
and to have the Friday prayers given in the name of the
Safavid emperor.27 In keeping with that, the House of
Bijapur artists depicted Ismāʿīl wearing the twelvepointed red cap along with chainmail armour and a
gold breastplate, as his military officers would have
worn into battle. This clothing choice, in addition to
being easily recognizable, further underscores the
Shiʿa and Safavid dynastic links so important to the
painting overall (note that Sultan Ismāʿīl is positioned
almost directly below Shāh Ismāʿīl).
Similarly, Ibrāhīm I’s dress matches Firishtah’s characterization of the sultan. Firishtah explains how
Ibrāhīm, in direct contrast to his father, abolished
Shiʿism in favour of Sunni Islam, prohibited the wearing
of the twelve-pointed cap, and dismissed most of the
Westerners (Shiʿi émigrés from Iran) in his service,
instead preferring Deccanis, or local nobles.28
Accordingly, Ibrāhīm’s white and gold robes and tight
turban imitate that worn by the Deccanis.
Compositionally, his light coloured robes also provide
a break between the darker garb of the two flanking
figures, underscoring the sense of individualism among
the rulers.
Finally, the artists chose to depict ʿAlī I in full battle
armour (which originally would have been silver, rather
than black, as would have Ismāʿīl’s chainmail).
Presumably the mode of dress was intended as a visual
reference to the most important aspect of ʿAlī’s reign:
his victory in 1565 at the so-called Battle of Talikota,
during which a collation of Deccani sultans defeated
30
Deborah Hutton
6. Detail showing ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh I, Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh I, and Ismāʿīl ʿĀdil Khān. Kamāl Muḥammad and Chand Muḥammad, ‘The
House of Bijapur’, Bijapur, c. 1680, 16-¼ by 12-13/16 inches, ink, opaque watercolour, gold, and silver on paper, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 1982.213, reproduced with permission.
and killed the Vijayanagara ruler, Rāmarāya. This victory was the most significant of ʿAlī’s reign in part
because the rivalry with Rāmarāya was so intense, and
in part because ʿAlī managed to obtain the best portion
of the spoils for Bijapur, greatly increasing the sultanate’s size and enhancing its revenue considering.29
Directly thereafter, ʿAlī and his nobles undertook a
building campaign that transformed the capital city of
Bijapur through the construction of city walls, waterworks, gardens, and a monumental jāmiʿ masjid. 30 It is
logical to visually reference this major military accomplishment and turning point in Bijapur’s history.
Presenting ʿAlī as the battle-ready commander both
emphasizes a key triumphant moment in Bijapur’s
history and provides an easy way to visually denote
ʿAlī’s reign.
However, ʿAlī’s appearance is intriguing because
while we know of no paintings from the earlier sultans’
reigns, there are paintings attributable to ʿAlī’s reign,
including at least one portrait of the sultan. The David
Collection includes an album painting, datable on stylistic grounds to c. 1570, featuring a likeness of ʿAlī I set
within a brilliant lapis blue background (Figure 7). 31
ʿAlī appears in profile with a full beard and a gold caplike turban. He wears a flowing, sheer white and gold
jāmah with a gold brocade shawl over his shoulders. A
dagger with a composite animal handle is fastened at
his waist, and he holds a scroll in his hands inscribed
South Asian Studies
31
7. Sultan ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh I, Bijapur, c. 1570, 13-1/8 by 9-½ inches, ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper, David Collection,
Copenhagen, Inv. 6/2013. Photographed by Pernille Klemp, reproduced with permission.
32
Deborah Hutton
with a Persian verse praising the sultan. Significantly,
there is absolutely no relationship, in terms of style,
dress, or physical appearance, between this portrayal
of ʿAlī and that in the House of Bijapur.
While it is easy to imagine that one or two portraits
may have been lost and/or forgotten in the century
between their creation and that of the House of
Bijapur painting, we do know that there was an awareness of painting from ʿAlī I’s reign. The landmark artwork from his time is undoubtedly the Nujūm al-ʿUlūm,
an original illustrated manuscript on astrology, kingship,
and magic dated to 1570–71, featuring nearly 800 illustrations on its 348 folios. The Nujūm, which draws on a
variety of Indic and Islamic traditions, has been called
‘one of the most extraordinary texts to have appeared in
the pre-modern Deccan’,32 and was authored by Sultan
ʿAlī ʿĀdil Shāh I himself. 33 Notably, two later copies of
the manuscript survive: one equally heavily illustrated
version is attributable to Bijapur sometime during the
1660s or 1670s, and another partial manuscript is dateable to the seventeenth or eighteenth century Deccan. 34
While the Nujūm does not contain a portrait of ʿAlī, it
does have several illustrations of generic rulers,
depicted as Deccan sultans and dressed in a manner
similar to the c. 1570 portrait of ʿAlī. 35
The House of Bijapur portrayal of ʿAlī reflects
neither the type of dress nor painting style found in
the Nujūm, even though the manuscript was not only
known in Bijapur at the time, but celebrated enough be
copied, 800 illustrations and all. This knowledge leaves
three possible reasons why ʿAlī is portrayed as he is.
First, perhaps Kamāl Muḥammad and Chand
Muḥammad did not have access to any of the paintings
from ʿAlī’s reign (we do not know what the royal library
contained, or to what the artists had access, at this point
in time). Second, perhaps, the artists were aware of
paintings dating from ʿAlī’s reign, but did not associate
the works’ style with a distinct identity indelibly tied to
his rule in the same way that later rulers had styles
associated with their reigns. A third possibility is that
the necessity of visually connoting the crucial 1565
victory over Rāmarāya was vital enough to outweigh
other visual referents. In any case, they chose to put him
in armour, which, as we shall see, had implications for
how ʿAlī came to be remembered.
Thus, we see in the work the conscious segmenting
of time in some respects, primarily in the service of
creating a distinct visual identity for each ruler, and a
collapsing of time in other respects. This collapsing of
time results, we might imagine, both from a desire to
present the dynasty in its grandest form and from the
natural way in which memory operates. The rulers’
depictions become essentialized as they recede in time
– pivoting around just a single aspect of their reigns,
rather than reflecting a complex portrait – but the
representations remain equally idiosyncratic. Overall,
through the conscious appropriation of visual motifs
and styles, a sophisticated use of composition, and
judicious choice of the figures’ dress, the artists created
a nuanced portrait of the dynasty that responded to the
political realities of the period while also existing in an
idealized, historical realm.
Later iterations
What happened to the painting during the 300 years
between its creation and 1982, when the Metropolitan
Museum of Art acquired the work?36 It is safe to presume that, based on its large scale, expensive materials,
sophisticated details, and subject matter, the painting
was intended for the ʿAdil Shahi royal collection, but
its fate after the fall of Bijapur in 1686 is at this point
largely a mystery. This situation is common with regard
to Bijapuri painting: it is the rare album, painting, or
manuscript for which we have an established
provenance. 37 For most works, we do not yet know
what happened to them between the seventeenth and
twentieth centuries.
What we can ascertain is that within just a few years
of the House of Bijapur’s production, other, non-courtly
artists working in the Deccan were copying its imagery,
suggesting that the painting very quickly had some
degree of circulation beyond the confines of the royal
library. A smaller, less detailed, and refined version of
the dynastic portrait is amongst the fifty-five paintings
collected by the Italian adventurer Niccolao Manucci
while he resided in the Deccan. Like the original,
Manucci’s version (Figure 8) depicts Yūsuf ʿĀdil Khān
at the centre, enthroned, wearing a green robe, holding
a key, foot resting on a globe, flanked by the other seven
rulers.
Manucci arrived in India as a young man c. 1656.
After various interludes with the Mughals and the
Portuguese, he ended up working as a court physician
for Awrangzīb’s son, Shāh ʿĀlam, in Aurangabad during
1678–82 and again during 1684–86. Thus, Manucci was
in the Deccan when the Mughals defeated Bijapur, but
he left that same year to settle in Madras. 38 This means
that the fifty-five paintings he collected, including the
later ʿAdil Shahi dynastic portrait, had to be in his
possession by 1686. 39 Manucci, in his memoirs, writes
of the paintings:
Before leaving the kingdom of the Mogol, I had [. . .] all
these portraits of kings and princes, from Tamerlane to
Aurangzeb, and of the sons and nephews of the last
[. . .]. No one, so far as I know, has presented these
portraits to the [European] public, or if someone has
done so, they bear no relation to mine, which are
authentic, while the others can only be false. In fact,
South Asian Studies
33
8. The ʿAdil Shahi Rulers of Bijapur, Deccan (Hyderabad/Golconda), c. 1686, ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper,
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Manucci Collection, reproduced with permission.
to have them I spared no expense and I had to give great
gifts, and all that with a thousand difficulties and subterfuges, with the promise that I would never reveal that
I possessed them.40
In the above passage, Manucci implies that either
the paintings were ‘authentic’ Mughal ones, taken from
the royal libraries, or they were based on ‘authentic’
Mughal images stored there, and to obtain them, he
had to engage in subterfuge, so closely were they
guarded. At times, Manucci is not the most reliable
source. For example, he also writes that the key Yūsuf
holds in the dynastic portrait represents the fact that
before founding Bijapur, Yūsuf was a slave in charge of
the royal treasury for the Vijayanagara ruler Rāmarāya
– a decidedly unlikely scenario as Rāmarāya was born
several decades after Yūsuf’s death.41 That said, his
account of obtaining the paintings is plausible in certain
respects and suggests that the House of Bijapur, or a
copy of it, was in the possession of the Mughal forces in
the Deccan.
Rather than being products of the Mughal royal
workshop, however, it is more likely that his particular
paintings, done in a style that most scholars classify as
either ‘Golconda’ or ‘Mughal-Deccan’, were the product of a mid-to-high level painting market directed at
the increasing number of foreigners, both European and
Mughal, present in the Deccan in the mid- to late
seventeenth century.42 This theory is further supported
by another version of the ʿAdil Shahi dynastic portrait,
datable to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and now in the collection of the Nationalbibliothek
Vienna.43 Apart from a slightly different pattern on the
carpet and small alterations to the background attendant
figures, the two paintings are almost identical. The
Vienna version has a key, written in Dutch, identifying
the sultans, suggesting the painting was acquired by a
representative of the Dutch East India Company before
being sent back to Europe.
A close comparison between Manucci’s version (as
well as that in Vienna) with the House of Bijapur painting reveals how the inclusion or exclusion of certain
artistic details transforms the imagery’s significance.
The arrangement and general depictions of the sultans
are the same in the later versions (except that ʿAlī ʿĀdil
34
Deborah Hutton
Shāh I now holds a bow and arrow, rather than a sword);
however, the Safavid figure handing the key to Yūsuf,
the distinctly Bijapuri landscape filling the background,
the characteristic Bijapuri colour palette, and the
sophisticated nuances of styles are all gone. Without
them, the political implications of the imagery, those
relating to the dynasty’s heritage and legitimacy, also
vanish. The scene instead becomes a generic visual
accounting of the ʿAdil Shahi rulers, who now are distinguished primarily through their dress and compositional placement. Moreover, both the Manucci and
Vienna paintings form part of sets of other historical
figures, further emphasizing the cataloguing aspect of
the imagery. One can imagine that the artistic changes
resulted both from differences in the painters’ styles,
skills, and work environments and from discrepancies
in the underlying reasons for the imagery’s appeal in the
first place.
Another iteration of the imagery, a painting dateable to the mid-eighteenth century in the collection of
the British Library, evidences the continued circulation of the imagery.44 In this version, the Shāh Ismāʿīl
figure handing the key to Yūsuf ‘Ādil Khān is present,
but the last three ʿAdil Shahi rulers, Muḥammad, ʿAlī
II, and Sikandar, are not. The British Library’s analysis of the painting takes the absence of the later rulers
as evidence that the work is not based on the imagery
in the c. 1680 House of Bijapur painting, but, rather,
that it is a copy of some earlier dynastic painting, now
lost, made c. 1610 during the reign of Ibrāhīm II.45
Much of the painting records from Bijapur have been
lost, and so it is certainly possible that other models
for the imagery once existed. However, the specific
scenario proposed in the British Library analysis
seems unlikely because of the clear Mughal inspiration for both the globe and key motif, which did not
appear in Mughal painting until at least 1615, and the
dynastic multi-generational portrait, which did not
take the specific form shown in these images (rulers
enthroned together on a carpeted platform) until about
the 1630s.
Another explanation is that there were multiple versions of the ʿAdil Shahi dynastic portrait circulating in
the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and this
particular artist took the liberty of omitting, adding, and
rearranging some of the figures, just as was done in the
Manucci and Vienna versions. Indeed, I would argue
that what we are seeing is not the repeated copying of a
specific painting or paintings, but rather the codification
and dissemination of conventions for representing the
sultans: Yūsuf in his green robe holding the key,
Ibrāhīm II with his three-quarter pose and full beard,
and, of course, ʿAlī in full battle armour. It is the formation of collective historical memory through image
repetition and circulation.
This process took on new life in the nineteenth
century when Manucci’s painting was used as the basis
for engravings published in two important early works
on Indian architecture. The first was Louis Langles’
Monuments anciens et modernes de l’Hindoustan,
which was published in two volumes in 1821.46
Langles’ engraving was then republished in 1866 in
Taylor and Fergusson’s Architecture at Beejapoor, an
Ancient Mahometan Capital in the Bombay Presidency
(Figure 9).47 This crucial early study of Bijapur’s monuments quickly became the reference for all later studies
of the sultanate’s architecture, and, notably, the engraving from Langles occupies a prominent place in the
volume, facing the book’s title page. The engraver carefully replicated each detail of Manucci’s painting, down
to the bow and arrow (rather than sword) held by ʿAlī I
and the pattern in the carpet, but he did use shading to
add volume to the figures and objects. He also chose to
employ thin vertical stripes to indicate the chainmail
worn by both ʿAlī I and Ismāʿīl. In the case of Ismāʿīl,
the engraver added similar looking stripes to the ruler’s
twelve-pointed cap, with the net effect of making
Ismāʿīl’s armour (apart from his breast plate) now read
as cloth, like his cap. Finally, the bookmakers added
numbers along the bottom of the illustration, corresponding with a list identifying the rulers. Through
this new contextualization, the image transformed
again, becoming a foundational piece of knowledge
used to introduce readers to Bijapur.
One more important reproduction of the imagery
was published in 1907. This time, rather than an engraving based on Manucci’s dynastic painting, it was a
black-and-white reproduction of the painting itself.
While Manucci’s memoirs were never published in
Italy or France, William Irvine eventually translated
them into English and had them published under the
title of ‘Storia do Mogor’. The London publication was
four volumes long and included black-and-white illustrations of all of Manucci’s Deccan paintings.48
Crucially, these published versions of the later market-oriented ʿAdil Shahi dynastic portrait were circulating before any serious study of ʿAdil Shahi-era royal
painting had been undertaken, and therefore they
became the de facto characteristic visual representation
of the sultans. In fact, when scholars began investigating Bijapur’s courtly painting in the 1930s–50s period,
the Manucci and Vienna paintings were employed as
key evidentiary documents. Both Basil Gray and Robert
Skelton used the two works to substantiate their tentative identifications of earlier, un-inscribed royal
portraits.49 Bringing us full circle, Gray even cites
Ibrāhīm II’s representation in Manucci’s version
(Figure 8) to verify his conclusion that the c. 1615
portrait of the ruler in the British Museum50 (the painting that most likely served as the source for
South Asian Studies
35
9. Frontispiece, ‘The Kings of Beejapoor’, Captain Phillip Meadows Taylor and James Fergusson, ‘Architecture at Beejapoor, an
Ancient Mahometan Capital in the Bombay Presidency’ (London: John Murray, 1866).
posthumous portraits of the sultan) depicts Ibrāhīm II:
the iteration of the iteration of the iteration now being
used to substantiate the original.
The 1930s also witnessed one more adaptation of
the imagery. In 1937, Sukumar Deuskar (1912–52), the
principal of the School of Fine Arts and Crafts in
Hyderabad, created a set of oil paintings depicting the
ʿAdil Shahi sultans (Figure 10).51 In this version, the
rulers no longer share one dynastic stage. Now, each
sultan has been given his own canvas and all the supplemental figures and settings have disappeared.
Deuskar worked in what can be classified as a postimpressionistic style, manifest in the jewel-toned backgrounds and light emanating from behind each figure,
as well as the soft and rounded, but slightly stocky
appearance of the sultans.52 However, the details of
each sultan’s depiction clearly come from Manucci’s
painting or some later iteration of it – most likely the
engraving included in Architecture of Beejapoor based
on the fact that Ismāʿīl’s chainmail has been transformed
into a striped jacket with a breastplate oddly attached to
it. Yūsuf has lost his globe, but he still holds a key and
36
Deborah Hutton
10. Sukumar Deuskar, Portraits of the ʿAdil Shahi Rulers of Bijapur: (top row, from left to right) Yūsuf, Ismāʿīl, Ibrāhīm I, ʿAlī I;
(bottom row, from left to right) Ibrāhīm II, Muḥammad, ʿAlī II, Sikandar; Hyderabad, 1937, oil on canvas, courtesy of the Salar Jung
Museum Library, Hyderabad, India.
is depicted in a light green robe. ʿAlī I is depicted in full
armour and, tellingly, holds a bow and arrow, rather
than a sword. Ibrāhīm II is shown in the three-quarters
pose with a sprig of flowers in his hand. There are a few
other slight changes: ʿAlī II now faces in the opposite
direction as before and Sikandar is shown older and
holding a flywhisk. Overall, though, the inspiration
from these images is clear: the sultans have been presented in their ‘characteristic’ appearances.
That same year, Deuskar made another set of oil paintings depicting the Qutb Shahi rulers of Golconda, following the same style and format. 1937 marked the Nizam of
Hyderabad’s silver jubilee, and a number of projects were
undertaken that year in celebration of the event. Perhaps,
these images formed part of one of those projects.
Unfortunately, the details of their commission are not yet
known. In general, however, we can situate their creation as
part of the larger interest in Deccan history, particularly its
Islamic history, actively fostered by the Nizam of
Hyderabad’s government during the 1910s–30s. The
founding of the Archaeological Department of the
Nizam’s Dominions in 1914, Osmania University in 1918,
the journal Islamic Culture in 1927, and the State
Archaeological Museum in 1930 all were part of this movement to preserve and celebrate Deccan heritage. The paintings, which were, and still are, hung in the Salar Jung
Museum, are clearly another manifestation of this.
Deuskar’s preference to depict the sultans as individual,
full-bodied characters worked to bring this heritage to life
in a way relatable to ‘modern’ twentieth-century viewers.
Deuskar’s images are familiar to anyone who has spent
time in Hyderabad or studied the Deccan, for they are
ubiquitous. Copies of them hang in various official buildings, and they continue to be widely reproduced in local
guidebooks and in books celebrating the culture and heritage of the Deccan.53 Interestingly, for all their ubiquity,
information on their production is hard to come by. Book
captions and labels tend to identify the ruler being represented, but not any details about the artwork or artist. This
results from the fact that in these contexts, they are not
South Asian Studies
intended to function as artworks, objects shaped by an
artist’s motivations and context; rather, they are seen as
historical aids, straightforward illustrations providing
insight into the figures they depict.
Here, we arrive at the heart of the matter: the crucial
aspect of the imagery’s transformation from the House
of Bijapur painting through its various later iterations is
ultimately not visual, but rather typological, the shift
from master artwork to historical document. This
reframing, coupled with the widespread circulation of
the imagery, has impacted the characterization of all of
the ʿAdil Shahi sultans in both popular and scholarly
historical memory, but none more so than ʿAlī ʿĀdil
Shāh I, depicted forever ready for battle.
Many nineteenth and twentieth century writings on
Bijapur present ʿAlī as warlike, religiously extreme,
and/or possessing a questionable moral character. The
authors of the 1884 Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency,
for example, classify ʿAlī as ‘the most warlike king of
Bijapur’.54 Similarly, Henry Cousens assumed ʿAlī’s
construction of a new, large jāmiʿ masjid for his capital
was motivated by victorious religious zeal, even though
there is no evidence to support the assertion.55 Several
writers allude to the fact that there was ‘much to censure
in the sultan’s character’.56
Certainly, there are also many scholars who present
a nuanced picture of ʿAlī, highlighting his ‘liberal and
intellectual bent’ as well as his military victories.57
Multiple written sources dating to ʿAlī’s reign confirm
this side of his personality. A Jesuit priest who visited
Bijapur in 1561 described ‘Alī as ‘such a gentleman and
very liberal and magnanimous, the most well bred
prince that I have seen’.58 Moreover, Firishtah, whose
history of the ʿAdil Shahi dynasty was translated in the
mid-nineteenth century and is widely available, makes
evident that the conflict with Vijayanagara was political
rather than religious, and describes in detail ʿAlī’s
friendly visit to Rāmarāya’s capital early in his reign
in order to cement a political alliance with his southern
neighbour.59
In fact, in light of the amount of primary source
information regarding ʿAlī, it is surprising how many
accounts, particularly those written in the 1980s, cling
to the view of ʿAlī as ‘an austere Muslim’, ‘fanatically
Shiʿa’, and a ruler who spent his reign undertaking ‘a
campaign of religious persecution’,60 even when confronted with historical evidence to the contrary. For
example, one writer, when noting that the supervisor
of ʿAlī’s manuscript library was a local Hindu Maratha,
qualifies it as ‘strangely enough’.61
There are several historiographic reasons for this
characterization of ʿAlī, largely having to do with the
Deccan sultanates’ defeat of Vijayanagara and the role
that event came to play in colonial framings of Indian
history, which tended to foreground Hindu–Muslim
37
relations, or perceived notions of such relations.62 In
this framework, ʿAlī’s identity as a Shiʿa Muslim was
seen as the primary factor in any and all of his actions.
It also results from a trend, identified by Carl Ernst, in
writings on South Asian history in which prominent
historical figures are transformed into heroes or villains.
Ernst terms this transformation ‘historiomachy’ and
notes that the characterization tends to be based on
whether or not the figure is perceived as religiously
tolerant.63 Extending this analysis to art historical discussions, art is often seen as flourishing under the guidance of the heroes and stagnating during the reigns of
villains. In Bijapur, ʿAlī’s successor, Ibrāhīm II, during
whose forty-seven-year reign the arts of Bijapur
reached their peak, unquestionably plays the role of
hero. Beginning his poetry with invocations to the
Hindu goddess Saraswati and then shortly thereafter
praising the Muslim Sufi saint Gesudaraz, wearing the
dried berry beads of the Hindu mystic, becoming lost in
a trance when he listened to music – it is hard to
imagine a more religiously open, romantic figure than
Ibrāhīm.64 Casting ʿAlī as an extreme Shiʿa Muslim, too
busy undertaking ‘a campaign of religious persecution’
to be the ‘brilliant patron of music and the visual arts’
that his nephew was, provides the perfect foil.65
Anyone inclined towards the above reading of history need only look at Deuskar’s widely reproduced
portraits of the sultans (Figure 10) to see their assumptions seemingly authenticated. Ibrāhīm II’s portrait
depicts the sultan holding a flower, bedecked in jewels,
his pale robes framed by a welcoming light blue background. His three-quarters pose allows us to see more
of his face, and his finger crooked towards his chin
suggests an air of contemplation. In contrast, ʿAlī stands
in full armour against a dark background (the darkest of
all the sultans’ depictions). Outfitted with formidable
spikes at his shoulders and multiple weapons, the sultan
stares intently off to the side, forever ready for battle.
Conclusion
Returning now to the original House of Bijapur painting, we can discern the way in which it functions as a
link between how the dynasty remembered itself and
how it came to be remembered. What began in 1680 as
a sophisticated set of artistic choices made within the
context of a specific painting and political message
quickly became in the following decades artistic convention. Repeated over time, it became historical memory, with each subsequent reiteration buttressing the
seeming historical accuracy of the original: one description of the painting, for example, praises it for showing
the rulers ‘in their characteristic appearances’, without
questioning when those appearances became
38
Deborah Hutton
characteristic or why.66 These ‘characteristic appearances’ then began to be viewed, perhaps even on a
subconscious level, as providing insights into the sultans’ characters. But, with the original context, both
artistic and political, of the imagery gone, those insights
easily become filtered through our own frames of reference, ones in which, sadly it seems, a Muslim ruler in
full armour often has a specific set of connotations.
8.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
A Persian inscription running vertically along
the mid-left-hand edge of the page reads in
nakshī script, ‘Work of Kamāl Muḥammad and
Chand Muḥammad’.
For more on Mallū ʿĀdil Khān, see History of
Medieval Deccan, 1295–1724, ed. by H. K.
Sherwani and P. M. Joshi, 2 vols (Hyderabad:
Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1973–74), I,
314–15.
For earlier discussions of this painting, including
its dating, see Masterpieces from the Department
of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011); Stuart
Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300–1900
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985),
pp. 310–11. Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983),
pp. 150–51. See also <http://www.metmuseum.
org/collection/the-collection-online/search/
453183?=&imgno=0&tabname=label> [accessed
11 January 2016]. It is possible that the painting
dates earlier than 1680, that it was, perhaps, even
begun during the reign of ‘Alī II, with Sikandar’s
likeness added later.
For more on the downfall of the ʿAdil Shahi
dynasty, see Sherwani and Joshi, I, 371–94. For
an excellent historical overview of this period,
including Awrangzīb’s movements, see Catherine
B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),
pp. 225–55.
Welch, p. 310.
Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, Power,
Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s
Deccan Plateau, 1300–1600 (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2014), p. xxiii.
For a thorough discussion of the painting, see
Humayun’s Garden Party: Princes of the House
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
of Timur and Early Mughal painting, ed. by
Sheila Canby (Bombay: Marg, 1994).
For a reproduction of the painting, see <http://
collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O17093/timur-baburand-humayun-painting-unknown/> [accessed 11
January 2016]. The painting was actually one of
a pair of allegorical images made for Shāh Jahān.
The other, now in the collection of the Chester
Beatty Library, depicts Akbar handing the crown
of sovereignty to Shāh Jahān as Jahāngīr looks on.
Elaine Wright, Muraqqaʿ: Imperial Mughal
Albums from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
(Alexandria: Art Services International, 2008),
pp. 362–63.
For more on the globe imagery in Mughal painting, see Sumathi Ramaswamy, ‘Conceit of the
Globe in Mughal Visual Practice’, Comparatives
Studies in Society and History, 49.4 (2007),
751–82. See also Ebba Koch, ‘The Symbolic
Possession of the World: European Cartography
in Mughal Allegory and History Painting’, Journal
of the Economic and Social History of the Orient,
55 (2012), 547–80.
Ramaswamy, 759, 771.
Ellison Banks Findley, ‘The Visionary Paintings of
Jahangir’s Later Years’, in Contacts between Cultures:
West Asia and North Africa, Amir Harrak, ed.
(Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992), p. 206.
Wright, pp. 288–92.
Muhammad Qasim Ferishta, History of the Rise of
the Mahomedan Power in India, ed. and trans. by
John Briggs, 4 vols (London: Longman, Rees,
Orme, Brown & Green, 1829; repr. 3 vols,
Calcutta: Editions India, 1966), III, 22.
For further discussion of the growing Mughal
influence, see George Michell and Mark
Zebrowski, The New Cambridge History of India
1.7: Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),
p. 177. See also In the Realm of Gods and Kings:
Art of India, ed. by Andrew Topsfield (London:
Philip Wilson Publishers, 2004), p. 231.
For more on the painting, see Pratapaditya Pal, Indian
Painting: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art Collection (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1993), pp. 326–27; and <http://collections.
lacma.org/node/226895> [accessed 11 January
2016]. It is instructive to compare the work to a
portrait of Shāh Jahān of the same date from the
Late Shah Jahan Album, also now part of LACMA’s
collection (LACMA M.78.9.15) <http://collections.
lacma.org/node/239300> [accessed 11 January
2016].
For another example, see Sulṭān Muḥammad
ʿĀdil Shāh and Ikhlāṣ Khān Riding an Elephant,
South Asian Studies
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
by Ḥaydar ʿAlī and Ibrāhīm Khān, c. 1645,
Bijapur, Hodgkin Collection. Andrew Topsfield,
Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of
Howard Hodgkin (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum,
2012), pp. 94–95. See also Michell and
Zebrowski, pp. 177–83.
For more on the painting, see Topsfield, Visions of
Mughal India, pp. 96–97, as well as Welch, pp.
306–07. See also Zebrowski, pp. 139–44, particularly figures 107 and 108.
Topsfield, In the Realm of Gods and Kings, p. 293.
For further discussion of the distinctive landscape
motifs from Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II-era painting,
see Deborah Hutton, ‘The Use of Imaginary
Landscapes in Paintings from Bijapur’, in
Garden and Landscape Practices in Precolonial
India: Histories from the Deccan, ed. by Daud
Ali and Emma J. Flatt (Delhi: Routledge India,
2011), pp. 127–47.
Welch, p. 310.
Molly Emma Aitken, The Intelligence of Tradition
in Rajput Court Painting (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2010). Speaking more specifically about painting from Bijapur, John Seyller
notes ‘Painting assumed a distinct character
under each of the major Bijapuri rulers’, in
Intimate Worlds: Indian Paintings from the Alvin
O. Bellak Collection, ed. by Darielle Mason,
(Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art,
2001), p. 110.
Few portraits of Sikandar have been identified,
but one in the Custodia Foundation, Paris, is illustrated and discussed in Zebrowski, p. 149.
See Pal, pp. 330–31 and <http://collections.lacma.
org/node/247405 [accessed 11 January 2016].
For an excellent overview of painting from
Ibrāhīm II’s reign, see Keelan Overton, ‘A
Collector and His Portrait: Book Arts and
Painting for Ibrahim ʿĀdil Shah II of Bijapur (r.
1580–1627)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, UCLA,
2011), pp. 6–21.
For further discussion of portraits of Ibrāhīm
ʿĀdil Shāh II, see Deborah Hutton, The Art of the
Court of Bijapur. (Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2006), pp. 96–107.
See <http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collec
tion_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=
231582&partId=1&searchText=ibrahim+’Ādil
+shah+ii&page=1> [accessed 11 January 2016].
Ferishta, III, p. 28; Eaton and Wagoner, pp. 126–27.
Ferishta, III, pp. 47–48; Eaton and Wagoner, p. 128.
Eaton and Wagoner, pp. 155–56.
Hutton, Art of the Court of Bijapur, pp. 26–42.
<http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/
dynasties/sultanates/art/6-2013?image_index=0
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
39
[accessed 11 January 2016]. I agree with the David
Collection’s dating of the portrait because of the
stylistic similarities between it and paintings from
the Chester Beatty Library’s 1570–71 copy of the
Nujūm al-ʿUlūm. Alternatively, Zebrowski, pp.
65–66, suggests it may be a later Golconda copy of
an earlier Bijapur original. The Smithsonian’s Freer
and Sackler Galleries contain a later copy of the
portrait, dateable to c. 1590–1610: Sultan ʿAli ʿĀdil
Shāh I of Bijapur, Bijapur, Freer and Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, S1986.446, published in
Glenn D. Lowry with Susan Nemazee, A Jeweler’s
Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book from the Vever
Collection
(Washington,
DC:
Smithsonian
Institution, 1988) pp. 200–1. See also <http://www.
a s i a .s i.e d u / c o l l e c t i o n s/s i n g l e Ob j e c t . c f m?
ObjectNumber=S1986.446> [accessed 11 January
2016].
Eaton and Wagoner, p. 134.
Emma Flatt, ‘The Authorship and Significance of the
Nujūm al-ʿulūm: A Sixteenth-Century Astrological
Encyclopedia from Bijapur’, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, 131.2 (2011), 223–44.
Hutton, Art of the Court of Bijapur, p. 51.
Hutton, Art of the Court of Bijapur, pp. 63–69.
The museum purchased it at the Kevork Essayan
estate sale, Nouveau Drouot, Paris, 24 June 1982
(lot 67, to John R. Alderman for the Metropolitan
Museum of Art).
Some works seem to have been acquired by the
Rajput rulers serving with the Mughal armies in
the Deccan, and those paintings became part of the
royal collections at places like Kishengarh and
Bikaner. Navina Haidar, ‘The Kishangarh School
of Painting, c. 1680–1850’ (unpublished doctoral
dissertation, University of Oxford, 1995); Robert
Skelton, ‘Documents for the Study of Painting at
Bijapur in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth
Centuries’, Arts Asiatiques, 5.2 (1958), 102. Other
paintings ended up in Lucknow: Keelan Overton,
‘Maid Killing a Snake’ and ‘Dervish Receiving a
Visitor’:
A
Re-examination
of
Bijapuri
Masterpieces through the Lens of the Lucknow
Copy’, in Indo-Muslim Cultures in Transition, ed.
by Alka Patel and Karen Leonard (Leiden: Brill,
2012), pp. 37–60. Additionally, Francis Richard
mentions a Bijapuri manuscript that ended up in
Ṭīpū Sulṭān’s collection as well as Bijapuri paintings
that ended up in Iran in the eighteenth century.
Francis Richard, ‘Some Sixteenth-Century
Deccani Persian Manuscripts in the Bibliothèque
nationale de France’, in The Making of IndoPersian Culture: Indian and French Studies, ed. by
Muzaffar Alam, Francoise Delvoye, and Marc
Gaborieau (Delhi: Manohar, 2000), pp. 239–49.
40
Deborah Hutton
38.
For more on Manucci’s career and memoirs, see
Sanjay Subramanyam, ‘Further Thoughts on An
Enigma: The Tortuous Life of Nicolò Manucci,
1638–c. 1720’, The Indian Economic and Social
History Review, 45.1 (2008), 35–76.
In Madras, Manucci devoted himself to writing his
memoirs-cum-Mughal-history, which, in 1700, he
sent to Venice, along with the paintings, for publication. For various reasons, his memoirs and the paintings were not published. In 1797, they were taken by
Napoleon to Paris, where they still reside at the
Bibliothèque Nationale. Niccolo Manucci, History
of India between Tamerlane and Aurangzeb, circa
1678–1686, Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
Paris, Estampes, Rés., Codex Od. 45. <http://gal
lica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55003367g> [accessed
11 January 2016]. The fifty-five paintings include
two portraits of Manucci, a painting of Timūr hunting, images of various Mughal rulers enthroned or
in procession, paintings of Mughal generals stationed in the Deccan, two dynastic, multi-generation
portraits, one of the ʿAdil Shahis of Bijapur and one
of the Qutb Shahis of Golconda, as well as depictions of both Muslim and Hindu ascetics, a woman
performing sati, and an elephant match. Manucci
commissioned another sixty-six paintings, showing
aspects of Hindu life, but these works most likely
were produced later, during the 1690s or 1700s,
when he was living in Madras. Subramanyam, 35–
76. See also Basil Gray, ‘Deccani Painting: The
School of Bijapur’, The Burlington Magazine for
Connoisseurs, 73.425 (1938), 74–77 (pp. 75–76).
As quoted in Subramanyam, 51.
Niccolao Manucci, Mogul India, or Storia do
Mogor, trans. by William Irvine, 4 vols (London:
John Murray, 1907–08), p. 232. He also misidentifies the order of the ʿAdil Shahi rulers and the
lengths of their reigns.
Subramanyam, 52–53, speculates that, perhaps,
‘these portraits were produced in the Deccan,
probably in Aurangabad (where Shah ʿAlam had
his camp), with a very loose basis in existing
Mughal albums’. Zebrowski, p. 194, writes: ‘It
was the custom at Golconda for painters of modest talent to produce albums of Deccani and
Mughal notables for sale in the bazaar to
European and other foreign travellers.’ See also
Gray, 75; Skelton, 105; Mildred Archer, Company
Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period
(London: The Museum; Ahmedabad: Mapin Pub.
Pvt.; Middletown, NJ: Grantha Corp., 1992), pp.
14–16.
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Min. 64, fol. 20 Tafel
14. The painting is reproduced in Josef
Strzygowski, Asiatische miniaturenmalerei im
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
anschluss an wesen und werden der mogulmalerei
(Klagenfurt: Verlag Kollitsch, 1933), Abb. 37.
According to Gray, pp. 75–76, the painting entered
the library in 1762. Skelton, p. 106 ft. 1, notes that
‘a third version of this subject is in the Salar Jung
Museum, Hyderabad’.
<http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-afri
can/2014/07/some-more-unpublished-deccanipaintings.html> [accessed 11 January 2016]. See
also Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures,
Sotheby’s London Nov 21–22, 1985, lot 71.
As per the British Museum website: ‘The painting
is by a Deccani artist, apparently about 1750, after
a lost Bijapuri original of c.1610. It is inscribed on
a cover sheet in Persian: Majlis-i ʿĀdil Shah badshah maʾah nazdikan (‘assembly of King ʿĀdil
Shah with his relatives’) [. . .] the original would
have been the beginning of a tradition of such
paintings which added each new ruler at the
appropriate time.’ http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.
uk/asian-and-african/2014/07/some-more-unpub
lished-deccani-paintings.html
[accessed
11
January 2016].
Louis Langles, Monuments anciens et modernes de
l’Hindoustan, decrits sous le double rapport archeologique et pittoresque, et precedes d’une notice
geographique, d’une notice historique, et d’un discours sur la religion, la legislation et les moeurs
des Hindous, 2 vols (Paris: P. Didot l’aine, 1821).
The engraving appears in volume 1, the plate
facing p. 234.
Captain Phillip Meadows Taylor and James
Fergusson, Architecture at Beejapoor, an Ancient
Mahometan Capital in the Bombay Presidency
(London: John Murray, 1866).
See endnote 41. An abridged version was published
a few years later: Niccolao Manucci, A Pepys of
Mogul India, 1653–1708; Being an Abridged ed. of
the ‘Storia do Mogor’ of Niccolao Manucci, trans. by
William Irvine, abridged ed. by Margaret L. Irvine
(London: John Murray, 1913).
Skelton, 97–125. Gray, 74–77. Gray, 74, writes of
the two later dynastic images: ‘There is no reason
to doubt the accuracy, at least of the later, portraits. Each of the rulers is represented with
strongly characterized features.’
See endnote 26.
Each painting is signed and dated by Sukumar
Deuskar.
<http://www.artattelangana.org/artistDetails.php?
PARId=PAR103> [accessed 1 March 2015].
Deuskar studied painting in Shantiniketan with
Nandalal Bose before attending the University of
Paris. His father was Ramkrishna W. Deuskar,
who was also an artist and was also the first
South Asian Studies
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
curator of the Salar Jung Museum. <http://www.
artattelangana.org/artistDetails.php?PARId=
PAR101&alpha=R> [accessed 1 March 2015].
‘It’s eggs-quisite’, Deccan Chronicle, 19 May
2013 <http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/
130519/entertainment-tollywood/article/it%E2%
80%99s-eggs-quisite> [accessed 9 March 2015].
See, for example, M. A. Nayeem, Heritage of the
ʿAdil Shahis of Bijapur (Hyderabad: Hyderabad
Publications, 2008); Shri Hanumantrao Kauljalgi,
A Visit to Bijapur (Bangalore: Anita Kaujalgi,
1987); and Richard Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur
1300–1700 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1978). The Qutb Shahi rulers’ portraits have
been reproduced in Raza Alikhan, Hyderabad:
400 Years (Hyderabad: Zenith Publications,
1990) and M. A. Nayeem, The Splendour of
Hyderabad (Hyderabad: Hyderabad Publishers,
2002), among others.
Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Bijapur
District 23 (Bombay: The Government Central
Press, 1884), p. 613.
Henry Cousens, Bijapur and Its Architectural
Remains: With an Historical Outline of the ʿAdil
Shahi Dynasty, Archaeological Survey of Indian,
New Imperial Series 37 (1916; repr. Delhi:
Bharatiya Publication House, 1976), p. 57.
Zebrowski, p. 61.
Quote from Eaton and Wagoner, p. 134. For particularly nuanced discussions of ʿAlī, see: Eaton
and Wagoner, pp. 134–38; P. M. Joshi, ‘‘Ali’ ‘Adil
Shah of Bijapur (1558–80) and His Royal
Librarian: Two Ruq’as’, in The Sardhasatabdi
Commemoration Volume, 1804–1954, ed. by G. C.
Jhala (Bombay: Asiatic Society of Bombay, 1957),
pp. 97–107; H. K. Sherwani, ‘Cultural Synthesis
in Medieval India’, Journal of Indian History, 41
(1963), 239–59; and H. K. Sherwani, ‘Deccani
Preludes to Akbar’s Social and Economic
Reforms’, Islamic Culture, 50.1 (1976), 25–31.
John Correia-Afonso, ‘Bijapur Four Centuries
Ago as Described in a Contemporary Letter’,
Indica, 1 (1964), 87.
Ferishta, III, pp. 117–19.
Elizabeth Merklinger, Indian Islamic Architecture:
The Deccan, 1374–1686 (Warminster: Aris and
Phillips, 1981), p. 32. Zebrowski, p. 61. Lowry, p.
201. Notably, these characterizations come from
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
41
Western authors writing in the 1980s, when their
view of Shiʿism may have been filtered through
media coverage of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in
Iran.
Zebrowski, p. 61.
In terms of the Deccan, see, for example: Robert
Sewell, A Forgotten Empire (1900; repr. New
Delhi: National Book Trust, 1970). In recent decades, many publications have provided nuance
and critically needed depth to our understanding
of the ways in which religious identities were
constructed during this period. See, for example:
Catherin B. Asher, ‘Islamic Influence and the
Architecture of Vijayanagara’, in Vijayanagara –
City and Empire: New Currents of Research, ed. by
A. L. Dallapiccola and S. Z. Lallement, 2 vols
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1985), I, 188–95;
Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious
Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. by David
Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2000); Phillip
Wagoner, ‘Sultan among Hindu Kings’: Dress,
Titles, and Islamicization of Hindu Culture at
Vijayanagara’, Journal of Asian Studies, 55.4
(1996), 851–80.
Carl W. Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History,
and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1992), pp.
20–21.
For more on the problematic nature of casting
Ibrāhīm II as the hero, see Deborah Hutton,
‘The Elixir of Mirth and Pleasure: The
Development of Bijapuri Art, 1565–1635’
(unpublished doctoral dissertation, University
of Minnesota, 2000), pp. 227–33. More recently,
Eaton and Wagoner, p. 161 and ft. 84, suggest a
need to temper ‘the conventional image of
Ibrahim II as something of a beads-and-flowers
hippie avant le temps’. See also Phillip B.
Wagoner,
‘Fortuitous
Convergences
and
Essential Ambiguities: Transcultural Political
Elites in the Medieval Deccan’, in Surprising
Bedfellows: Hindus and Muslims in Medieval
and Early Modern India, ed. by Sushil Mittal
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003), pp.
32–39.
Lowry, p. 201.
Welch, p. 310.