Detail of Shah Jahan Watching an Elephant Fight Manuscript Folio in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 2019

"Shah Jahan Watching an Elephant Fight", Folio from a Padshahnama
probably 1639


Object Details

Title: "Shah Jahan Watching an Elephant Fight", Folio from a Padshahnama

Artist: Bulaqi

Date: probably 1639

Geography: Attributed to India

Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

Dimensions: H. 15 1/16 in. (38.2 cm)
W. 9 3/4 in. (24.7 cm)

Classification: Codices

Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick, Louis V. Bell, Pfeiffer and Dodge Funds, 1989

Accession Number: 1989.135


In this page from the Padshahnama, the artist has created a unified space stretching from the foreground, where goaders are milling, to the top of the scene, where the emperor and his two sons are shown in profile at an open tripartite window. Although the white and red walls of the fort are unmodulated planes, the placement of figures before them gives a sense of spatial recession. The dynamism of the elephant combat balances the impassive family portraits. While the courtiers in the upper tier turn their backs on the melee to face the royals, and the lower figures seem more concerned with the combat, curiously, none of them look directly at the object of their attention, somewhat diminishing the work's psychological intensity. Nevertheless, the artist subtly suggests that the emperor, under his gilded roof, is the lord of all beneath him.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453313