DETROIT, MI.- Travel back in time to the exotic world of India’s Mughal empire in the exhibition The Private World of India’s Mughal Emperors: Albums of Painting and Calligraphy from the Chester Beatty Library, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Aug. 23–Nov. 16. The exhibition is free with museum admission.

The Private World of India’s Mughal Emperors includes 87 outstanding miniature paintings, calligraphy and illustrated manuscripts from albums in the private libraries of the Great Mughal emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan (c. 1590-1657). Due to their delicate state, these works are rarely on view and have never been seen in Detroit.

Mughal painting is characterized by its experimental nature, its preoccupation with likeness, its interest in the exotic (holy men of all religious persuasions, and images of flora and fauna), its illustration of texts from the pre-Islamic, Islamic and Hindu traditions, and its representation of Islamic kingship in what was one of the wealthiest and most powerful empires in the world.

“We are thrilled to have this exceptional exhibition at the DIA,” said Graham W. J. Beal, DIA director. “These exquisitely rendered paintings and manuscripts are in excellent condition, and visitors will appreciate the vibrant colors and fine details in each work of art.”

The Mughals The Mughals, descended from the Mongol rulers Timur and Ghengis Khan, were members of an Islamic dynasty that conquered and ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 1526 to 1858. Among the early Mughal emperors were three great patrons of the arts: Akbar (r. 1556-1605), Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1666). As patrons, the Mughal emperors encouraged artists to closely observe flora, fauna and human models. These mainly Hindu painters not only drew upon their own abilities to produce likenesses from nature, but also upon Persian and Hindu painting traditions and conventions, and the European prints that circulated at the Mughal court. It was the extraordinary, experimental synthesis of these diverse sources that gives Mughal painting a particular and compelling beauty.

Akbar established an academy of local painters directed by Persian artists, and during his rule, the production of illustrated manuscripts rose to a level previously unknown in India. Jahangir favored paintings of events from his own life rather than illustrated fiction. He encouraged portraiture and scientific studies of birds, flowers, and animals, which were collected in albums. Shah Jahan perfected Mughal architecture, and is most famously known for erecting the Taj Mahal. Portraiture was most highly developed at his sophisticated court, and ink drawings were of high quality.

The Albums The collection of diverse works were assembled into albums that served as sources of enjoyment and entertainment within the private sphere of the Mughal court, but also as channels for propaganda and to strengthen a public image of kingship. The Mughal emperors conceived of albums as more than a means of storing collected material; they commissioned paintings specifically for albums. These included scenes of daily life, such as princes and courtiers assembled on garden pavilions, princes visiting sufis and sages, and paintings of the hunt and of exotic animals.

The Mughals valued likenesses, and Mughal portraits took on aspects of realism previously uncultivated in the Islamic world. Akbar’s biographer Abu’l-Fazl wrote, “His Majesty himself sat for his likeness, and also ordered to have likenesses taken of all of the grandees of the realm. An immense album was thus formed—those who have passed away received a new life, and those who are still alive have immortality promised to them.”

The promise of “immortality”—or rather, the longevity of outward appearance—was a concept inspired by European engravings collected at the Mughal court. The immense curiosity of the Mughals toward Europe (and Europeans in Asia, such as the Jesuits), meant that dealers in such prints found ready buyers in India. These images were copied by Mughal court artists, or pasted up into assemblages that were also gathered into albums. The Persian inscriptions added to such eclectic images, however, indicate that they were perceived in idiosyncratic ways, usually unrelated to their original context. The marriage of text and image in Mughal albums—the commentary sometimes written by the Emperors themselves—reveals the fascinating intentions of many of the pages in the exhibition.