Detail of Shah Jahan on Horseback in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2019

"Shah Jahan on Horseback", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album
verso: ca. 1630; recto: ca. 1530–50


Object Details

Artist: Painting by Payag (Indian, active ca. 1591–1658)

Calligrapher: Mir 'Ali Haravi (d. ca. 1550)

Title: "Shah Jahan on Horseback", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Date: verso: ca. 1630; recto: ca. 1530–50

Geography: Attributed to India

Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

Dimensions: H. 15 5/16 in. (38.9 cm)
W. 10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm)

Classification: Codices

Credit Line: Purchase, Rogers Fund and The Kevorkian Foundation Gift, 1955

Accession Number: 55.121.10.21

Payag worked for the emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan over the course of a remarkably long, seven-decade career, and his brother Balchand was also a talented painter with whom he collaborated on a handful of paintings. The attribution of this portrait to Payag, written in the border below the painting by Shah Jahan, was recently confirmed by the discovery of a microscopic signature on the golden tip of the emperor’s bow.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451267