"Emperor Babur Receiving a Visitor", Folio from a Baburnama (The Book of Babur)

The Emperor Babur Receiving a Visitor

The emperor Akbar followed the tradition of his Mongol and Timurid ancestors in commissioning profusely illustrated manuscripts of historical works, from the traditional Islamic world histories to the chronicles of specific events of an individual reign, whether his own or that of the founder of the Mughal dynasty, his grandfather Babur. Babur's revealing memories are not the usual commissioned histories written in Persian, the literary language of the court, but rather, a personal narrative in the everyday language of the Timurids—Chaghatay or Eastern Turkish. During Akbar's reign it was translated into Persian and given the title of Baburnama.

The painting retains traces of Safavid Persian influences, especially in the textile pattern of the blue and gold canopy, with its delicate design of flying birds, including a simurgh, and of a running deer against a background of flowering tendrils. However, the handling of spatial depth within the royal tent enclosure is a particularly Mughal development, as is the suggestion of portraiture in the faces—not only Babur's but many of the courtiers' as well, such as that of the visitor in his act of obeisance and the profiles of the two figures in the center foreground. The artist Madhu is mentioned by Abu'l Fazl, Akbar's biographer, as one of the court painters.

Other leaves of the same manuscript are in private collections and in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Marie Lukens Swietochowski in [Berlin 1981]

Inscription: In Persian, in red: the outline by Madhu...and work of Babad...

Hagop Kevorkian, New York (until d. 1962; his estate sale, Sotheby's, London,December 6, 1967, no. 113, to MMA)

"The Property of the Kevorkian Foundation, December 6, 1967." In Highly Important Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. London: Sotheby's, New York, 1967. no. 113, p. 37, ill. opp. p. 37 (b/w).

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 123, pp. 290–91, p. 291 (b/w).