Untitled

Manohar

ca 1600 · Brown and blue ink with gold on paper · Asian Art

The Virgin Mary and infant Jesus, seated on a floral carpet, are honored with an offering of a plate of fruit, visible in the foreground, consistent with the Hindu devotional practice of prasad (offering). They are attended by three angels, one bearing a gold censer and another with a Chinese-style blue-and-white porcelain bowl decorated with geese. Their feathery bodies and faces resemble those of the peris, or fairies, of Indo-Islamic painting. This hybridity of style and cultural reference is a hallmark of Mughal painting at the turn of the sixteenth century, when European influences in subject matter and technique were being absorbed by court artists such as Manohar. The artist used a tinted drawing method known as nimqalam (half-pen), to create this delicate image.

Artist

Manohar

Date

ca 1600

Medium

Brown and blue ink with gold on paper

Culture

Islamic

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections, 2015