Miniature Paintings
In early modern India, every ruler of note commissioned and collected “miniature” paintings. These delicately rendered watercolor compositions on paper not only delighted the senses, they also persuaded. Portraits, for example, represent royalty as unblemished, all-powerful, and semi-divine. Kings and even queens bear golden auras—an unequivocal evocation of their ostensibly celestial status. Yet, illustrations for sacred texts also blurred the earthly and sacred realms. Depictions of Krishna show the blue-skinned deity in magnificent gems, pearls, and sumptuous regalia reminiscent of courtly costume. As the divine lover, he flirts with his favorite, Radha, while a royal retinue dances, plays music, and makes merry. Gods and kings mix and merge in the idealized world of courtly painting.
The Exhibition
This exhibition explores the convergence of human and divine in nine exquisite paintings created for Muslim and Hindu patrons between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The portraits and narrative illustrations on display exemplify the refined tastes cultivated by courtly connoisseurs across the subcontinent. Indeed, paintings—which were typically housed in manuscripts and albums that took the form of a codex (stitched book) or a stack of loose leaves—circulated freely among India’s royalty. They also traveled as gifts from one ruler to another, while painters themselves found employ at one court to the next. The resulting confluence of artistic styles speaks to the complex, intertwined nature of these royal networks.
Drawn entirely from the Mead’s permanent collections, Gods, Kings, and Lovers: Courtly Painting from India reveals the essential role that painting played in the lives of India’s elites.
