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CHAND BIBI 1550-1594
Princess of AHMEDNAGAR and Queen of BIJAPUR...
Painted in 1585
Water colour - Bijapur Museum

ast cultured son, Aurangzeb, who showed little interest in painting and spent most of his life campaigning in the south. As the French jeweler Tavernier noted on arrival in Delhi in 1665, "The city appears to be a desert when the King is absent. If there have been 400,000 men in it when the King was there, there hardly remains the sixth part in his absence."

The death of Aurangzeb in 1707 rapidly fragmented the Empire and Delhi descended into chaos. Three Emperors were murdered; one of them, Farrukhsiyyar, was imprisoned and starved, and later blinded and strangled. These conditions were far from ideal for cultural patronage, yet, as is evident from the examples on view in this gallery, the painting atelier at Delhi, the source of the great masterpieces of Shah Jahan's reign, continued to produce works during and after the rule of Aurangzeb. Moreover, the courts of Bahadur Shah I, Jahandar Shah, and Farrukhsiyar all fostered painters who developed their own distinguished palette utilizing a decorative and highly refined approach to figural representation.

Source: Asia Society