A Youth Expires When His Beloved Approaches and Speaks to Him: Page from a Gulistan of Sa’ di Manuscript (central section only) Reverse of penbox by 'Abid.

Balchand’s skill in the portrayal of psychological drama is exemplified in this remarkable fragment, which is mounted onto a lacquered wood mirror box cover. It depicts the moment in Sa’di’s Gulistan when a youth collapses and expires on seeing the handsome young prince, long the object of his desire, who approaches him on horseback. The prince expresses astonishment and perhaps puzzlement with his raised hand, a gesture repeated by several of his entourage. This is a beautifully observed scene of unrequited love. It is set in an atmospheric landscape in which a series of intercepting hillocks leads the viewer’s eye to the center of the drama, the visual engagement of the prince and his admirer.

Balchand
Hindu artist active at the Mughal courts in Delhi, Lahore, Allahabad, and Agra, 1595–ca. 1650, brother of Payag

An Indian recruit who appears to have converted to Islam, Balchand entered the royal atelier in the last decade of Akbar’s reign and had a long career spanning the reigns of three emperors. He followed Prince Salam to his court-in-exile in Allahabad in 1600 and returned with him in 1605 to Agra, where he continued to serve at court under Shah Jahan into the early
1650s. As a junior member of the inner circle of painters at court, Balchand was entrusted in 1589 with a double spread in the Akbarnama (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) and in 1595 with painting the figures in the border decorations of a deluxe imperial edition of the Baharistan, rare privileges for his age. Although his work of this period does not warrant the confidence placed in him, he matured into a master painter excelling in portraiture and was entrusted with the most important commissions of his age. The grisaille-rendered figures — termed nim qalam (half-colored) in Persian — in the border decorations of a folio devoted to Faqir Ali’s celebrated calligraphy of 1606, demonstrate Balchand’s new mastery of figure studies. The marginalia of another folio in the series depict the stages of making a calligraphic album, notably paper making, burnishing, and the act of writing.

Balchand received his major imperial commissions under Shah Jahan, including a (retrospective) double-portrait of Jahangir and Akbar. As father and son are depicted in cordial and respectful attitudes, we can only assume that this was produced at Shah Jahan’s instruction to “re-write history.” Their relations were far from harmonious, the impatient Prince Salam having openly rebelled against his father. This and other works of the period demonstrate Balchand’s gift at psychologically penetrating portraiture, a talent he displayed to its fullest in the complex dardar scenes that Shah Jahan increasingly demanded. This reached its highest expression in the illustrations to the Padshahnama, prepared for the emperor under the direction of the historian Abdu’l Hamid Lahori. Balchand’s paintings display a chromatic sophistication that enlivens and unifies his compositions.

That Balchand had some standing at court beyond that of a respected painter is indicated by the inclusion of a prominently positioned self-portrait in an imperial dardar scene; to do so otherwise would have been a dangerous presumption. He displayed a picture portfolio, emblematic of his trade, upon which is inscribed “the likeness of Balchand.” This is an artist who was confident of his place in the court order.