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Mother and Child with a White Cat: Folio from a Jahangir Album
Attributed to Manohar
Not on view
This anonymous work has been attributed by Beach to Manohar and by Welch, Brand and Lowry, and Okada to Basawan. The chromatic subtlety, beautifully realized drapery, and sophisticated handling of linear perspective are worthy of both these artists. The subject matter clearly is inspired by multiple European models; the woman’s windswept drapery echoes that of the Pietas Regia depicted on the second frontispiece of the Royal Polyglot Bible, which was adapted to a reclining nursing posture, hence prompting the Virgin and Child identification. The four-cartouche inscription has no overt Christian associations, making this identification tenuous, although such imagery is undoubtedly embedded in this composition’s multifarious sources.
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