Baz Bahadur
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Watercolor |
| Current Location: | Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Accession no. IS.2:11-1896) |
| Location History: | The Akbarnama was passed down by Akbar to his son Jahangir and then later on went to his son Shah Jahan and therefore remained within the Mughal royal library across their reigns. There is a lack of information about it's whereabouts post that till the 19th century when it resurfaces in the possession of Major General John Clarke, who served as the Commissioner of Oudh from 1858 to 1862. After his demise, his widow, Frances Clarke had sold the manuscript to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1896, where it is located now. |
Banwari (also recorded as Banwari Kalan, "Banwari the Elder," and sometimes conflated with a related artist called Banwari Khurd, "Banwari the Younger") was a Hindu painter who worked in the imperial kitabkhana (painting workshop) of the Mughal emperor Akbar during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Like most artists in the atelier, he would have rarely worked alone on a piece of art as Mughal manuscript painting was a collaborative process where a senior master supplied the tarh (composition/outline) and another artist executed the amal (coloring and finishing) and these folios frequently included landscape, trees, and garden settings. This particular folio depicts the defeat of Baz Bahadur(Ruler of Malwa) by the Mughal general Adam Khan. In the painting we also see his consort Rupamati along with her attendants fleeing to the terrace to seek safety. The episode is further continued in another folio titled Dancers from Malwa perform before Akbar by a different set of artists, this shows how the Malwa campaign was illustrated across several images within the manuscript. The image depicts Akbar’s strategy of using the Akbarnama in the creation of a visual image that consolidates dynastic legitimacy, and in this instance it is done through the absorption of the defeated courts into the imperial record. The persian inscription on the margin illuminates the name of the artists that worked on the piece, it records how the work was shared or rather divided between artists, a feature that was quite common in Akbar’s kitabkhana. The inscription reads: "Tarh Jagan / Amal Banwali Kalan" which translates to: “composition by Jagan, painting by Banwali the Elder”, this particular inscription further illuminates the collaborative workflow of the kitabkhana. This piece and Banwari’s contribution to artwork appears to be quite in tandem with the art produced in the atelier which consisted depictions of foliage, garden architecture, and the textured surfaces of terraces and pavilions; these elements lend the setting a lush, almost documentary specificity in a way softening the violence of the narrative below with elements of decorative naturalism.