Persian calligraphy (recto), equestrian portrait of Akbar (verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album

Persian calligraphy (recto), equestrian portrait of Akbar (verso), folio from the Late Shah Jahan Album. This portrait of the Mughal emperor Akbar was commissioned during the reign of his grandson Shah Jahan, long after Akbar's death in 1605. Later portraits of Akbar always repeat the three-quarter face pose of portraits made during his lifetime, even though imperial Mughal portrait style had since shifted to strict profiles. In the original album layout, this equestrian portrait may have been mounted opposite a similar portrait of Shah Jahan (Goenka Collection): the two emperors facing each other across the page-opening. The calligraphy side, in turn, may have faced a very similar folio (Washington, DC, Freer-Sackler S1986.91), signed by the calligrapher Mir `Ali Haravi (d. 1544). This folio comes from an imperial Mughal Indian album, produced for Shah Jahan towards the end of his reign (c. 1650-1658), and referred to as the “Late Shah Jahan Album”. Now dismantled, the album’s grand format folios are today dispersed in public and private collections worldwide, with twenty folios in the Chester Beatty. The album layout was planned with matching artworks facing each other: calligraphy opposite calligraphy, paintings opposite paintings. These artworks are rarely contemporary with the album project: they have been assembled, and are presented together as a carefully curated collection. As with other Mughal albums, the borders are a very significant part of the Late Shah Jahan Album’s presentation, with a consistent visual theme continuing throughout the folios. In this album, colourful border paintings may amplify the central image, or embed it within a contemporary Mughal design. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on album page with painted borders, Persian calligraphy in nasta`liq script, unsigned but attributed to Mir `Ali Haravi (d. 1544), against backdrop of lotus floral scrollwork on gold, with border paintings of gold-outlined flowering plants and curling clouds (recto), portrait of Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) on horseback holding a falcon, unsigned, with border paintings of waiting attendants with falcons and musket guns, and angels with dynastic symbols (emperor Humayun's turban, and a globe) overhead (verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album, recto calligraphy possibly Bukhara, Uzbekistan, c. 1500-1544, painting and album page, Agra, India, c. 1650-1658.