Babur and His Army Emerge from the Khwaja Didar Fort
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Watercolor |
| Current Location: | The British Museum in London, England |
| Location History: | The painting depicts the Khwaja Didar Fort near Samarkand, where Babur wintered in 1497, and illustrates his military encounter with Shaybani Khan and the Uzbek forces. Although the historical event took place in Central Asia, the miniature itself was produced in India during the reign of Akbar, around 1590, as part of an illustrated Bāburnāma manuscript. The folio originally formed the left-hand side of a double-page composition, with the corresponding page showing Shaybani Khan and the Uzbek forces being driven toward Samarkand. The present folio is in the collection of the British Museum (2000,0616,0.1), which acquired it by purchase from Terence McInerney Fine Arts Ltd in 2000. It was exhibited at the Kentucky Horse Park in the United States in 2010 and is currently recorded by the British Museum as not on display. |
Painted around 1590 under Akbar, Babur and His Army Emerge from the Khwaja Didar Fort follows the usual division of labour in the imperial workshop: Basáwan laid out the composition, and Dharm Dás carried it out in paint. The subject comes from Babur's own memoirs, from the years of his struggle against Shaybani Khan and the Uzbeks. Babur rides out of the fort at Khwaja Didar with his cavalry, and the painter puts him almost dead centre, on a fully armoured horse with a parasol held over his head. Behind him a drummer on a camel keeps the column moving. In the foreground lie a few broken arrows. It is a small detail, but it tells us the fighting has already begun. The fort is more than a backdrop. Its red-brick walls, battlements, vaulted tomb and pavilions fix the episode at a specific place, and they also press in around the riders as they stream out. Nothing here follows European linear perspective. Instead, the artist stacks the scene: figures overlap, buildings rise in tiers, and the army spreads across the surface of the page rather than shrinking into the distance. The page is crowded and busy, yet the eye still goes to Babur first. The folio was also never meant to be read alone. It is the left half of a double-page composition, and the facing page shows Shaybani Khan and the Uzbeks being driven back toward Samarkand. Together the two pages give one continuous account of the encounter, from advance to retreat. That is why the painting works as more than a record of a battle. It places Babur's movement, authority and campaign within the longer story the Mughals wanted to tell about their own dynasty.y of the Mughal dynasty.
Sources: