Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin
(from 2nd Feb until 22nd Apr 2012)Explore the remarkable collection of Indian paintings and drawings of the artist Howard Hodgkin.
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The last and most powerful Islamic dynasty in India, the Mughal empire was founded in 1526 by the Central Asian prince Babur and consolidated from the 1560s by his dynamic grandson Akbar (r.1556-1605). The Mughal style of painting was also formed at this time, from an inspired synthesis of Persian miniature technique with vigorous local Indian styles and growing European naturalistic influences. Several of Howard Hodgkin’s Mughal pictures, beginning with the great Hamzanama series, belong to Akbar’s reign, when the energetic qualities brought by his newly enlisted Indian artists were at their strongest. Under the emperors Jahangir (1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (1627-1658), ruling from Agra, Lahore and Delhi, portraiture of rulers and courtiers replaced manuscript illustration as the dominant painting genre. As well as superb groups of elephant portraits and bird and flower studies, the Hodgkin collection contains outstanding and often unusual Mughal portraits and court scenes, from the mid-17th century to the last emperor Bahadur Shah, deposed by the British in 1858.
Manuscript illustrations
Mihrdukht aims her arrow at the ring (LI118.1)
Khwaja Umar saved from pursuers (LI118.100)
A supplicant at a Hindu temple (LI118.2)
Krishna dancing on the head of Kaliya (LI118.101)
Hunter shooting a leopard (LI118.81)
Bad news arrives at court (LI118.94)
Rama's forest dwelling in Panchavati (LI118.12)
The blind Dhritarashtra attacks the statue of Bhima (LI118.10)
Attendants at an imperial durbar (LI118.14)
Portraiture and court life
A prince riding an elephant in procession (LI118.26)
Gathering of dervishes and drug addicts (LI118.102)
Nobleman smoking on a terrace (LI118.112)
Music party on a riverside terrace (LI118.21)
Head of the courtier Iltifat Khan (LI118.35)
Prince Aurangzeb (LI118.88)
Prince Azam Shah enters Ahmedabad (LI118.22)
Company officer receives noblemen on a terrace (LI118.27)
Durbar of Emperor Akbar Shah II (LI118.93)
The emperor Bahadur Shah (LI118.111)
Elephants, birds, and flowers
Elephant and rider (LI118.56)
The elephant Khushi Khan (LI118.58)
Royal elephant with mahout (LI118.47)
The elephant Ganesh Gaj and rider (LI118.55)
Elephants fighting (LI118.97)
Elephant and keeper (LI118.46)
Young elephant eating (LI118.48)
Two orioles (LI118.65)
Two myna birds (LI118.68)
Two pigeons (LI118.92)
Botanical study of a geranium (LI118.70)
Botanical study of a carnation (LI118.71)
Pink composite flower with leaves (LI118.72)
Sheet of flower studies (LI118.69)
Two panels with flower designs, possibly from a box (LI118.117)
Notice
Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.
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