"Todi Ragini: A Lady with a Vina Attracts Two Deers," Folio from a dispersed Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)

One of the most perplexing blanks in the history of Indian painting is what happened to
painting in the Deccan, a prime art­producing area on the high plateau in the south­central
region of the country, between the downfall of the Islamic sultanates in 1686 and 1687 and the
re­emergence of Hyderabad, when that city became capital of the revived Deccani kingdom, in
1763. The mixed Mughal­Deccani art that was produced in the region between the years 1687­
l750 is some of the most spectacular painting ever made in India. But very little is known about
Of course after the final conquest of the Islamic sultanates in 1686 and 1687, the former
kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda were absorbed into the Mughal empire. They were joined to
the Mughal Viceroyalty of the Deccan, and ruled by the Mughals from their Viceregal capital of
Aurangabad, i.e. the city of Aurangzeb. Aurangabad, under the Mughals, a city of gardens
and palaces, of merchants and bustling trade, had become a great metropolis ever since it was
made capital of the Mughal Deccan in the year 1636. Between the years of 1650 and 1750 it
was probably the pre­eminent city in the region. (After about 1750, Aurangabad suffered a long
decline. becoming the sleepy little place of little importance that it is today.) From 1683 to 1707,
when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb resided there, Aurangabad was the effective capital of the
Emperor’s vast empire.
Later, after 1723, when Chin Illich Khan ( ­ ), the future Nizam­ul­Mulk, Asaf Jah I ,
a breakaway Mughal general, became the first monarch of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, he ruled his
newly minted domain, the former Mughal viceroyalty of the Deccan, from his palace in, and
capital city of, Aurangabad. As all of the Deccani grandees had flocked to Aurangabad to be
close to Asaf Jah I, the dispenser of all patronage, Hyderabad during Asaf Jah’s lifetime
became a virtual ghost town. (1) It did not become a great metropolis, and a major center of
patronage, until about 1750, when the later Asaf Jahi monarchs moved there, building palaces,
and establishing a Hyderabadi school of court painting in the revived city.
Sadly, Nizam­ul Mulk, the first Nizam (deputy) of the Deccani Asaf Jahi dynasty, was not a
patron of painting. But some of the Mughal and Rajasthani noblemen and generals, and various
members of the former Deccani elite, were patrons of painting during Asaf Jah’s time. And
Aurangabad, not Hyderabad, became their center, as it serviced the needs of this newly
emerging class of leaders and patrons. Thus, an Auragabadi school of painting came into
existence. This school flourished between the years 1650 and 1750, or during the period before
Hyderabad replaced Aurangabad as the major center of patronage in the region.
This Aurangabadi school of painting has been vaguely intimated in the literature. but it
has never been seriously studied or properly detailed. The school, located in a city that
recycled outside influence, was of course a mix of Mughal. Deccani, and Rajasthani styles that
had coalesced and evolved over time. It was the product of opportunistic, or needy , artists
drawn from all over India, including out­of­work artists from the former Deccani courts. Lacking
a central tradition of patronage and direction, the school had become, by ca. 1750, rather a
rudderless ship. Yet before that time, many attractive Aurangabad­style paintings were
produced. They might have lacked the originality and the wild, inventive quality of the finest
Mughal­Deccani works of this period; yet as conventional productions, they often attained a very
high level of craft and quality.
We believe the present painting is an excellent, ca. 1700 example of the Aurangabadi
school. Together with cat. no. 14, it once formed part of an extensive Ragamala (Garland of
Melodies) Series. (For ragamala painting, see cat,. no. 7.) Five other paintings in the former
collection of Motichand Khajanchi belonged to the same Ragamala Series. (2)

(1) Eyewitness report from a Mughal governor, ca. 1723
(2) Karl Khandalavala, Moti Chandra, and Pramod Chandra, Miniature Painting from the
Sri Motichand Khajanchi Collection (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1960), nos. 159a­159e and
col. pl. G

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.