Shah Jahan in a landscape c. 1657
Oil on canvas | 51.0 x 64.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 406161
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One of at least four works by the artist depicting the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666), the others being in the collections of the Orientalist Museum in Doha, the Guimet Museum in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Shah Jahan sits at the lower right watching a group of dancing girls. The two figures seated to the left of the emperor can be identified as his son, Dara Shikoh, in conversation with his spiritual advisor, Mullah Shah. Schellink’s depictions of Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh and Mullah Shah are adapted from contemporary Mughal portraits. The figure of Mullah Shah appears to come from the same source as Rembrandt’s sketch Four Mullahs Seated under a Tree in the British Museum. Schellinks also took the figure of the seated female musician in the foreground from a seventeenth century Indian painting.
Provenance
Probably the painting of A Landscape with several Indian figures, first recorded at Hampton Court in 1710 (no. 44)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
51.0 x 64.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
63.0 x 76.0 x 4.2 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
CW add-SchellincksAlternative title(s)
A Nautch Girl's Dance before an Indian Prince
A Nautch Girl's Dance
An Indian revel in a landscape