f.5

Illustration from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nava’i (see RCIN 1005032).

This painting is a reinterpretation of a Flemish engraving of c.1580 depicting the Last Judgement by Adrian Collaert, after Jan van der Straet. Jesus, flanked by Mary and St John the Baptist, sits on a rainbow looking down as the dead rise up and are divided between the good and the evil, the believers and the disbelievers. Angels help those chosen to ascend to heaven while demonic beasts usher the damned to descend to hell.

Both the Bible and Quran present life on earth as a preparation for life after death and describe a Day of Judgement when God will come to ‘judge the living and the dead’ (Bible, 2 Timothy 4:1.) In the afterlife, ‘those who believe [in God] and do good deeds, they are dwellers of Paradise, they [will] dwell therein forever’ (Quran, 2:82) but for ‘those who have disbelieved and died in disbelief, the earth full of gold would not be accepted from any of them if it were offered as a ransom. They will have a painful punishment, and they will have no helpers’ (Quran, 3:91).

The names of the Mughal artists Nanha and Manohar are inscribed below the image. It is likely that Manohar completed the faces of Mary and Jesus and certain areas of drapery which are more worked up than other areas of the painting. The image was not traced from the original engraving and the Mughal artists made many alterations. The figures are fewer in number, altered in scale, and their musculature is replaced with a softer treatment of form. The cross held by St John the Baptist does not feature in the Mughal version.