Babur Seeks His Grandmothers Advice
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Watercolor |
| Current Location: | The Morgan Library & Museum , New York , USA |
| Location History: | The painting titled Babur Seeks His Grandmothers Advice was first made around 1590 to 1592. It is folio 86 in a Baburnama book that was produced in the imperial workshop also called a kitabkhana, of Emperor Akbar in northern India. After the Mughal court slowly fell apart and was plundered the book was split up. In the 1800s this single page was put back together. Framed with decorative borders and it became part of a set called the Read Mughal Album. Later it travelled to London, where it entered the collection of Sir Charles Hercules Read, who was a well‑known curator, at the British Museum. In 1911 the page was bought by American banker J. Pierpont Morgan. He took it to New York, where it now stays permanently at The Morgan Library & Museum. |
This miniature painting, a work of the 16‑century Mughal court workshop is attributed to the master painter Sānvalah. I see the miniature painting using a perspective that shows an important moment of survival from the Baburnama. The miniature painting depicts a palace with stepped stone walls, battlements and patterned tiles that make the story and social order clear. At the top of the building inside a pavilion called a chhatri sits a twelve‑year‑old Emperor Babur. The miniature painting shows Emperor Babur in a pose asking his grandmother and regent Aisan Daulat Begum for advice. The miniature painting frames this close high‑stakes meeting at the top while also showing the court below where guards watch the arched gates grooms keep ready the royal horses and attendants hurry across the squares all of which creates a tense on‑high‑alert mood of a Central Asian kingdom under attack. The miniature painting was made on wasli a paper that is made by layering hand‑spun plant fibers with wheat starch paste to keep it from warping. The miniature painting is an example of the Akbari era manuscript craft. The paint is watercolor or gouache and miniature painting gets its color by using pure mineral pigments: bright royal blue from crushed lapis lazuli, brick red from cinnabar and bright yellow from orpiment. The miniature painting also uses leaf and gold paste and these shine on the detailed flower patterns of the court clothes the cloth awnings and the building details. Every tiny part, from the expressions to the separate leaves on the trees is drawn with fine brushes made from a single squirrel tail hair and then the miniature painting is polished from the back with a smooth agate stone to seal the pigments and give it a glass‑like porcelain shine. The official record of this painting is kept in the permanent collection of The Morgan Library & Museum under Accession Number MS M.458.18. The record lists the size (440 × 294 mm) the path of ownership through the Read Mughal Album and the material description as " watercolor and gold on paper" [File:Babur Seeks His Grandmothers Advice.jpg]. Extra data and high‑resolution images can be checked on the Wikimedia Commons Visual Registry, which shows how the miniature painting was taken from folio 86 of the Baburnama [File:Babur Seeks His Grandmothers Advice.jpg]. Detailed pigment tests and comparisons, with 16‑century Mughal workshops are documented in the peer‑reviewed archives of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MetPublications) and The British Museum Collection Database.
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