'Abdullah Khan Uzbeg

This painting was painted by Abu’l Hasan around 1618 and the V& A titled this painting as Abdullah Khan Uzbeg. According to the V&A catalogue, the work is in opaque watercolour whic is commonly refre as Gouache and gold on paper and shows the khan hawking near Samarkand. If you look carefully in the painting, you will see a Persian line written which names the painter by his title, Nadir al-Zaman. The same record explains that the khan never visited the Mughal court, so the artist worked from descriptions. According to Potter, Abu’l Hasan copied a Dürer print as a boy of about twelve. Potter also describes his squirrel painting as showing naturalism that must have followed direct observation, which this portrait could not use. As per Jaykrushna, Jahangir wrote in 1618 that no painter matched him, and he was equally skilled at animal studies and landscapes. Haider says the messengers sent between Abdullah Khan and Akbar show that power kept changing beyond the Hindu Kush. That is why Jahangir wanted a picture of the khan. Keating points out that a Mughal painting of Jahangir meeting Shah Abbas also shows a German wind-up toy of the goddess Diana. This shows that royal paintings liked to include foreign leaders and foreign things. I think this portrait is just another example of bringing outsiders into the empire's royal art.