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.
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Title:The Virgin and Child Attended by Angels
Artist:Attributed to Manohar (active ca. 1582–1624)
Period:Mughal period (1526–1858)
Date:ca 1600
Culture:Islamic
Medium:Brown and blue ink with gold on paper
Dimensions:Page: H. 12 5/8 in. (32.1 cm) W. 9 3/16 in. (23.3 cm) Drawing: H. 6 3/16 in. (15.7 cm) W. 3 5/16 in. (8.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections, 2015
Object Number:2015.785
The Virgin Mary is seated on a floral carpet at the center of the composition, with one
arm resting on her upraised knee and the other arm resting on a thick book, probably a copy of
the Bible. She is facing the infant Jesus, who is depicted as a young toddler seated in a similar
way and holding another book, possibly a copy of the New Testament. The holy couple has
been honored with the offering of a plate of fruit, a prasad (offering) consistent with Hindu
devotional practice: the plate of fruit is depicted beneath the platform on which the mother and
child sit. The two figures are attended by three angels, who look more like Islamic peris than
Christian religious figures: one peri is covered in small, birdlike feathers. The angels hold a
blue and white bowl and plate decorated with geese or ducks, and a gold censer, suspended
like a pocketbook in the crook of one angel’s arm. The scene takes place out of doors, as is
denoted by the rocky landscape in the background, with its lightly colored yet densely foliated
This fine work is painted in the nim qalam (amber pen) technique. Made mostly between
ca. 1590 and ca. 1610, these tinted brush drawings, with broad areas highlighted in brown or
green washes, were considered finished works of art. They focused attention on the skills of the
Mughal draftsman, as his individual marks, unconcealed by layers of color, were there for
anyone to see. Imperial patrons greatly valued the art of drawing because it is closely allied to
the art of calligraphy, which the Mughals considered the greatest of all arts. (For work in a later,
related technique, see cat, no. 28.)
6. SK.006
The stocky figures and distinctive facial types, with their fleshy chins and almondshaped
eyes, as well as other features, allows one to attribute the drawing to Manohar (ca. 1568 ca.
1624), one of the greatest of Mughal artists. The Christian subject matter, probably based upon
a European engraving, is likewise characteristic of Manohar. His figure of Mary in the present
work is undoubtedly based upon the portrait of the Virgin reputedly painted by St. Luke, now in
Rome, that Manohar copied many times. (1)
Manohar, son of the great Akbari artist Basawan, rose through the ranks of the Mughal
atelier to become one of the foremost painters of his generation. (2) Given minor duties in the
1580’s, Manohar reached artistic maturity in the 1590’s. His move to Allahabad in ca. 1600 to
join the studio of the rebellious Prince Salim, the future Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 160527),
initiated a new phase in Mughal painting. Prior to the Allahabad move, Manohar had
specialized in copying and adapting the European engravings that Jesuit missionaries were
supplying Akbar’s court. From this source he learned to incorporate European techniques
(aerial perspective, three dimensional modelling, the depiction of human emotion) and exotic
motifs (the Indian equivalent of chinoiserie) into his own art. As a number of other Mughal
painters were working in this same direction, Indian painting was greatly enriched by the hard- earned achievements of these postRenaissance, European artists.
After his move to Allahabad, Manohar worked for Jahangir almost exclusively,
pioneering many new genres of court painting incorporating his new wisdom, and portraying the
Emperor in tender or intimate moments, as well as in the increasingly elaborate, yet stilted,
formal audience scenes for which he is best known. It is thought that Manohar died, or ceased
working, around the year 1624. (3)
(1) See Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press , 1999), fig. 68. See also Francesca von Habsburg et al,
The St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ (Milano: Leonardo Arte, 1996), pp. 6061, pl. 33 and Amina
Okada, Miniatures de l’Inde imperiale (Paris: Editions de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux,
1989), pp. 19495, no. 57. There is an unpublished drawing based upon the Madonna of St.
Luke, probably by the same artist, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
For the European influence on Mughal art, see Milo Cleveland Beach, “The Gulshan
Album and Its European Sources”, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. LXIII, no.
332 (1965), pp. 6291 and Gauvin Alexander Bailey, The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul:
Renaissance Art at the Imperial Court of India, 15801630 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution,
(2) John Seyller, “Manohar” in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy, eds.,
Masters of Indian Painting (Zürich: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 2011), pg. 138
6. SK.006
(3) For the artist Manohar see Glenn D. Lowry, “Manohar” in Milo Cleveland Beach, The
Grand Mogul (Williamstown: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978), pp. 13037;
Asok Kumar Das, Mughal Painting During Jahangir’s Time (Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1978), pp.
18892; Terence McInerney, “Manohar” in Pratapaditya Pal, Master Artists of the Imperial
Mughal Court (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1991), pp. 5368; and Seyller, op. cit., pp, 13552.
John Lawrence Fine Art 1989
[ John Lawrence Fine Arts Inc. , London, until 1989; sold to Kossak]; Steven M. Kossak , New York (1989–2015; gifted to MMA)
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