The portrait of Mir Jumla by Shiv Das was painted between 1618 and 1620 and was originally inserted into a royal Mughal album during the reign of Emperor Jahangir. The artwork was later acquired by Lady Wantage, from whose collection it was bequeathed to the museum in 1921. Today, the painting is held in the South & South East Asia collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The portrait of Mir Jumla (ca. 1618–1620) is an excellent surviving example of Mughal court portraiture by the artist Shiv Das. This page is from a royal Mughal album offering a rare glimpse into the cultural and political exchanges of the early 17th century. As for the artist, very little is known about him other than that he was part of the royal atelier during the 16th and 17th century, who originally was active under the reign of Emperor Akbar and continued to create his works through the reign of Emperor Jahangir as well. His surviving works are relatively rare, making this identified and signed portrait especially significant. As the painter himself was a part of the Mughal School of paintings, we see the characteristic elements of this school in the painting as well. The painting presents a wonderful fusion of naturalism and detailed representation which was prevalent in the time of Jahangir, owing to Persian influences as well as that of European naturalism. When we talk about the theme of the painting, we observe that it is the portrayal of Mir Jumla, a name given to Mir Muhammad Amin, who was an Iranian from a royal family in Isfahan. Before becoming a courtier of Emperor Jahangir, he used to be a courtier of the Qutb Shahi king in the region of Golconda in the Deccan, where he obtained his name of Mir Jumla. He remained a high-ranking official under Jahangir's successor, Shah Jahan, until his death in 1637. Here, in this painting, he is depicted standing and facing left (of the painting; facing his right) on a simple brown ground. The painting itself is relatively small but it is mounted on a large, ornate album page, and the portrait is further surrounded by elaborate decorative layers. The inner frame of the portrait consists of a border with ornamental Persian verses, which have been meticulously cut from another piece of paper and then pasted onto this one. The outer frame is marked by an expansive border made from a dye-colored indigo paper with floral and insect designs, along with Chinese clouds. A black Persian inscription on a strip of undyed paper at the bottom explicitly identifies the subject and the artist: "Likeness of Mir Jumla, the work of Shiv Das". Initially painted during the period of Jahangir's reign, the portrait was eventually incorporated into the album of the Mughal royal family (the Wantage Album). In general, it represents an uncommon example of the talent of the painter, Shiv Das, and also a pictorial representation of the prominent Iranian statesmen who had attained their highest positions within the Mughal administrative system.
The true shock of the object is its context. The painting is small, the central image just 13 centimetres high, yet it sits within an architectural explosion of gold on deep indigo . The outer borders are a miracle of the illuminator's art: flowering plants, hovering insects, and Chinese clouds rendered entirely in gold, creating an aura of cosmic abundance around the solitary official. The portrait is a world unto itself, a universe compressed into a rectangle. Shiv Das was not a major star of Jahangir's atelier; his surviving work is rare. But in this image, he achieved the defining quality of the mature Mughal album page: the illusion that the man is not painted but present.
