Portrait of Raisal Darbari, folio from the Salim Album

Portrait of Raisal Darbari, folio from the Salim Album. Rendered here in profile, Raisal Darbari (d. 1614) was a Sheikhawat Kachwaha Rajput nobleman who served the Mughal emperor Akbar and later also Akbar's son Jahangir, who remembered him in his memoirs. The Salim Album refers to a group of thirty (known) folios, today dispersed in international collections. These were once part of a small album of paintings and calligraphy, assembled for the Mughal prince Salim (who from 1605 would reign as the emperor Jahangir), probably during the brief years (1600-1604) that he spent in his own court at Allahabad. Eight of these folios are in the Chester Beatty. Although many have been trimmed down, the surviving Salim Album folios share a similar border scheme, of distinctive gold-painted geometric, cloud collar and floral motifs. The art collection mounted in the prince's album deals mainly with single or paired figures, framed by couplets of Persian poetry: these are contemporary court portraits, small compositions adapted from European print media, or studies of spiritual figures. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on gold-painted card, painting of the Mughal courtier Rai Sal Darbari leaning on his staff, Persian caption in nasta`liq script, folio from the Salim Album, assembled Allahabad, India, c. 1600-1605.