Handmade Shah Jahan Watercolor Paper Painting

This ovally framed portrait is of the Mughal emperor Shahjahan, the builder of the Tajmahal. He is the only one of the Great Mughals to have lived to the greatest of grandeur and the worst of grief and achieved the highest of glory and the lowest of gloom. This depiction closely represents his likeness, as has been recorded in his contemporary portraits. The National Museum, New Delhi, has in its collection a 1616-17 portrait of Shahjahan by Nadir-al-Zaman-Abul Hasan, inscribed in Shah Jahan's hand, "A good likeness of me in my 25th year". The portrait here save that it is a bearded Shahjahan of later days and has a somewhat different styled turban - a mix of Jehangari and his styles, has a close resemblance to his authentic likeness. Shahjahan was a visionary, which his eyes, both in his contemporary 1616-17 portrait and in this present one, reveal. The sharpness of lines and overall delineation, which the time and chemical properties of colors have adversely affected in the earlier portrait, has been somewhat made up in this portrait.

He is presented here with a sharply pointed nose, a well-trimmed mustache curving downwards, thoughtful eyes, and prominently delineated ears with an upward thrust. These, and the scarf on his shoulders, are characteristic features of most portraits of Shahjahan. Rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, and diamonds to some extent, seem to have been his chosen stones. By assimilating all these features in his portrayal, the artist has reached almost near his real likeness. Both the oval mount and the rectangular frame are embellished with floral designs gorgeously laid in gold, which constitutes a characteristic feature of the Mughal Art style, post-Jehangir.

Shah Jahan Watercolor Painting

Jehangir's third son Khurram Shihab al-Din Muhammad, who ruled as Shahjahan from 1628 to 1657, was born in 1592 to a Rajput queen of Jehangir from Marwar. When twenty, he was married to Arjumand Banu Begum renamed later Mumtaz Mahal. History bears testimony to Shahjahan's two passions, one for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and the other for architecture. The Tajmahal stands as the highest monument of love. Built-in the memory of his beloved Mumtaz Mahal, it combines both his infatuations - architecture and his mad yearnings for Mumtaz, the companion of his struggles, woes, and miseries in his adverse days.

Shahjahan had not only led the Mughal Empire to greater geography but also far greater cultural heights. But in an ironical twist of faith, this cultured and romantic Mughal had to suffer during his last phase at the much uncultured and brutal hands of his own orthodox and power greedy son, Aurangzeb. Shahjahan passed away in humiliating captivity at Agra fort, in his creation, the Musammam Burz, gazing at The Tajmahal with his fading vision, tossing his restless head in the lap of his daughter Jahanara, who had refused a part in her brother Aurangzeb's magnificent empire and had preferred to serve her father in his last days.

Description by Dr. Daljeet.

Dr. Daljeet is Curator, National Museum of india, New Delhi.