Mughal Emperor Shahjahan and Empress Mumtaj Mahal... Lot n° 43

Specifications: Water Color Painting On Paper Artist: Navneet Parikh 10.5 inches X 13.5 inches These two miniatures, one portraying the illustrious Mughal emperor Shahjahan, one of the Great Mughals, and the other, his queen Mumtaj Mahal, the only other powerful lady in the line of Mughals, the other being her aunt Nurjahan, have been rendered on two separate sheets and independent of each other but as in artistic perception that reflects in these two paintings so in real life, the two – Shahjahan and Mumtaj Mahal, were inseparably bound with each other by such ties of love of which the history of mankind does not have many parallels. Perhaps for illustrating this oneness of the two figures the artist has delineated in an identical manner every detail – architecture of the kiosk-pavilions they are seated in, style of its various members, pillars, brackets, beams, eaves, and parapets among others, the type of motifs, designing patterns and colour scheme seeking to embellish them, carpets laid over the outer railings, style of seats’ back and backdrops, figure-sizes, colours, diametric breadth and style of nimbuses, and even the colour scheme of the costume that they are wearing, besides the identically conceived, designed and embellished borders. Except the gesture of hands, the queen’s feminineness and the emperor’s maleness, the artist has pursued a common iconographic pattern, body posture, and modeling for rendering his figures. Fifth in the Mughals’ dynastic line Shahjahan was Jahangir’s second son. He was born in 1592 of his Rajput queen Bhanumati and was named Khurram. He succeeded his father in early 1628 after the death of the latter in late 1627, though not before defeating other contenders to the throne in the war for succession. Like his father Jahangir and grandfather Akbar, he too chose to rule under a title, and proclaimed himself as Shahjahan – the Ruler of the World. Mumtaj Mahal, the title that Shah