Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum

A catalogue of the Ashmolean’s collection of Indian art by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield (published Oxford, 1987).

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield

Publications online: 1 object

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Bhishma instructs Yudhishthira

  • Description

    This illustration comes from a dispersed manuscript of the Razmnama, a Persian translation of the great Hindu Mahabharata epic made during Akbar’s reign. It depicts Bhishma seated on a carpet in a landscape. Bhishma instructs Yudhishthira in the nature of the soul, or the recognition of the jivatman and the dharmatman. The work was probably commissioned by Akbar’s leading minister, Abd ur-Rahim Khankhanan, and executed by artists trained in the imperial studio. The Ashmolean has five other pages from this manuscript, and many others are in the British Museum.

  • Details

    Associated place
    AsiaIndia north India (place of creation)
    Date
    1598
    Mughal Period (1526 - 1858)
    Artist/maker
    Ahmad Kashmiri (active c. 1598) (artist)
    Associated people
    probably 'Abd ur-Rahim Khankhanan (1556 - 1626) (commissioner)
    Material and technique
    gouache with gold on paper
    Dimensions
    mount 40.5 x 27.9 cm (height x width)
    page 30.5 x 17 cm (height x width)
    painting with border 21.8 x 15.3 cm (height x width)
    painting without border 21.1 x 14.6 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Gift of Gerald Reitlinger, 1978.
    Accession no.
    EA1978.2593
  • Further reading

    Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 18 July-13 September 1981, and London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1981, Eastern Ceramics and Other Works of Art from the Collection of Gerald Reitlinger: Catalogue of the Memorial Exhibition, Deborah Willis, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum and London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1981), no. 406 on p. 143, illus. p. 143

Location

    • currently in research collection

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