Workshop and Patron in Mughal India: The Freer Rāmāyaṇa and Other Illustrated Manuscripts of 'Abd al-Raḥīm

339 Pages·1999·111.693 MB·English

by  John Seyller

Workshop and Patron in Mughal India: The Freer Rāmāyaṇa and Other Illustrated Manuscripts
of 'Abd al-Raḥīm
Author(s): John Seyller
Source: Artibus Asiae. Supplementum, Vol. 42, Workshop and Patron in Mughal India: The
Freer Rāmāyaṇa and Other Illustrated Manuscripts of 'Abd al-Raḥīm (1999), pp. 2-7+9-63+65-
249+251-291+293-339+341-344
Published by: Artibus Asiae Publishers
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John Seyller
Workshop and Patron in Mughal India
The FreerR dmdyanaa nd OtherI llustratedM anuscriptso f 'Abda l-Rahkm
ARTIBUS ASIAE Publishers,M useumR ietbergZ urich,S witzerland
In Associationw ith the FreerG alleryo f Art, SmithsonianI nstitution, Washington D.C.
I999 I SupplementuXmL II [42]
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Impressum
Editing Distribution CoverI llustration
ThomasL awton Artibus Asiae Publishers Ramaa nd Laksmanaa ttackT araka.
Museum Rietberg Zurich Artist: Mushfiq
Layouta nd CoverD esign Gablerstrasse1 5 25.6 x 13.7 cm.
ElizabethH efti CH-8002 Zurich (Detail of fig. 40, page 109)
Fax (+41) I 202 52 01
ColorS eparations [email protected] Frontispiece
Thomas Humm Portraito f'Abd al-Rahim.
By Hashim. ca. I626.
Printing Freer Gallery of Art 39.50.
DruckereiK onstanz Folio 38 x 26 cm,
D-Konstanz painting I4.9 x 8.2 cm.
(fig. 20, page 49)
Copyright
? Publikationsstiftung
fur das
Museum Rietberg Zurich
ISBN 3-907070-90-9
Printed in Germany
4
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Table of Contents
9 Introduction
1 13 The Formationa nd Diffusiono f the ImperialM ughal Style
13 TheT hemeos f MughalP ainting
15 TheF ormationof theM ughalS tyle
20 MughalP aintingd uringt heR eignso f Akbara ndJahdngir
22 TheD iffusiono f Paintingi n theI mperiaMl ughalS tyle
24 Thei f98-99 Razmndma
27 OtherP atronsin theI mperiaFl amily
29 ManuscriptIsll ustratefdo r IdentifiablSeu bimperiaPla trons
32 OtherP opularM ughalW orksin theI slamicT radition
33 PopularM ughalW orksin theI ndigenouIsn dianT radition
37 Conclusion
I 45 The Lifea nd Libraryo f 'Abd al-Rahim
45 PublicC areer
48 PersonalQ ualities
50 TheL ibraryP ersonnel
54 TheL ibraryH oldings
56 TheL ibrary'Ls ocation
III 65 CodicologicalA spects of the FreerR amayana
65 TheP ersianT ext
66 Notationsin theM anuscript
70 Folioa nd PaintingN umbers
73 'Abda l-Rahim'sI nscription
75 TheD ate of theM anuscript
IV 81 The Illustrationso f the FreerR ama.yana
81 Introduction
88 CriticalD escriptioonf theI llustrations
V 251 Other ManuscriptsI llustratedf or 'Abd al-Rahim
252 TheI 6I6-I7 Razmnama
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257 The Laud Rdgamdal
263 The British Library Shahndma
273 The Berlin Khamsa of Amir Khusraw
283 The Timuzrndma
VI 293 Border Decorations and Bindings
293 TheC hesteBr eattyL ibraryP anj Ganj ofJ mi
301 The Berlin Khamsao f Amir Khusraw
307 The Laud Rdgamdld
307 Bookbindings
VII 313 'Abd al-Rahim as a Patron
323 Appendices
323 A Illustrations of the Jaipur Rdmdyana
328 B British Library Shahndma( Add. 5600)
329 C Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin -
Preussischer Kulturbesitz Orientabteilung Khamsa of Amir
Khusraw Dihlawi (Ms. Or. I278)
330 D Reconstruction of the Berlin Khamsao f Amir Khusraw
332 E Chester Beatty Library Panj Ganj (Ms. 20)
333 Bibliography
337 Glossary
341 Index
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Acknowledgments
This study grew out of my Ph.D. dissertation,w hich I wrote at HarvardU ni-
versityu ndert he supervisiono f PramodC handraO, leg Grabar,a nd Wheeler
Thackston,J r. JoannaW illiams of the Universityo f CaliforniaB, erkeley,i ni-
tially suggested the Rdmdyanaas a topic of study. I am gratefulf or theirg uid-
ancea nd unwaverings upport.
Many friends and colleagues have assisted me in countless ways. Milo
Beach,J eremiahL osty, and Oleg Grabarr eade arlyv ersionso f the text. Milo
Beach also made available the unparalleled facilities and photographic
archiveso f the FreerG alleryo f Art, and offeredt o supply a numbero f pho-
tographst o the publication.T homasL entzw as most helpful in making final
arrangementsfo r publication.E berhardF ischero f the MuseumR ietbergw as
an enthusiastics upportero f the project,a nd generouslya greedt o underwrite
much of the expenseo f the book.
I also wish to thank Martin Amt, Craig Korr,J im Smith, and Martha
Smith of the FreerG alleryo f Art and the ArthurM . SacklerG allery;C arolyn
Kane,M arieL ukensS wietochowski,D aniel Walkero f the MetropolitanM u-
seum of Art; and Ralph and CatherineB enkaim.I n England,I am gratefult o
HenryG insburg,J eremiahL osty,N orahT itley, andM uhammadI saW aley of
the British Library;W illiam Robinson of Christie's;M argaretE rskinea nd
MarcusF rasero f Sotheby's;L indaL each;a nd MarkZ ebrowski.I n Germany,
Dr. Schubarth-Engelschalfl,o rmerd irectoro f the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek,
and Dr. Hartmut-OrtwinF eistel of the Staatsbibliothekz u Berlin, madep os-
siblet he studya ndr eproductiono f the Khamsao fAmir KhusrawJ. anC hapman,
Anna Contadini, Wilfrid Lockwood,a nd Michael Ryan kindly assisted me
during my many visits to the ChesterB eatty Library,D ublin. In India, A.A.
Arshizadaho f the RampurR azaL ibraryA, .K. Bedaro f the KhudabakhshL i-
brary,a nd RahmatA li Khano f the SalarJ ung Museumg rantedm e the privi-
lege of working with the treasureso f their institutions.
Travels upportw as providedi n part by the National Endowmentf or the
Humanities, American Institute of Indian Studies, and the University of
Vermont.A stipend from the MilliardM eiss PublicationF und of the College
Art Associationw as vital to the publication.
I am deeplyg ratefult o ThomasL awton,w ho enhancedt he bookw ith his
thoughtfula nd meticulouse diting. His graciousa ndp ersistents upporto f the
projectw as crucialt o making this publicationa reality.E lizabethH efti took
greatc aret o maket he volumea s handsomea s possible.F inally,I wish to thank
my wife, Anna, for her patiencea nd encouragement.
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Introduction
The first mention in the West of the Ramdyana manuscript now in the Freer
Gallery of Art appears in a slender sale catalogue of the collection of Colonel
Henry Bathhurst Hanna (I839-1914) published in 1890.' The dated label of a
Delhi bookbinder, Nizam ul Huq, affixed to the inside of the manuscript's
modern cover makes it likely that Hanna purchased the Raimayanam anuscript
in I886 or shortly before. The Rdmaiyanaw as unquestionably the centerpiece of
a collection of manuscripts and paintings assembled during Hanna's tour of
thirty years in India.2 European travellers and collectors had no opportunity to
see original imperial manuscripts in this era, and they routinely trumpeted
their newfound treasures with rather more enthusiasm than knowledge.
Hanna offered a typically exalted view of the Raimadyancal,a iming that
The book contains 129 full-page miniatures, exquisitely drawn and illu-
minated in the highest style of Persian art, far superior to anything in the
keeping of the British Museum, or the South Kensington Museum, or
amongst the Oriental manuscripts in India House. The Emperor Akbar's,
Shahjahan's, and Shah Alam's seals are affixed to the first and last pages.
The work and the paintings are signed by the artists. The Jeypore Razm
Nama, which is a little larger, cost Akbar more than ?40,000. This great
work, like the Jeypore Razm Nama, was probably stolen from the palace
at Agra when the Jats plundered that city in the eighteenth century.3
Elsewhere in the catalogue, Hanna erroneously wrote that the artists of his
manuscript were listed in the A'n-i Akbar?( Annals of Akbar) and that the I69
miniatures of the Jaipur Razmndma( Book of Wars) were by the same artists.4
Hanna also maintained that his copy of the Ramayana was commissioned by
Akbar (reigned 1556-I605), who, he believed, must have spent at least ?20,000
to have it produced.5
This grandiose estimation must have made the purchase of the manu-
script on October 24, I907, by the Detroit industrialist Charles Lang Freer
(I854-1919) for ?I,ooo seem quite a bargain.6 A I916 inventory list for the new
museum that would bear Freer's name places the insurance value of the man-
uscript at $Io,ooo, twice that of the purchase price. At the same time, the
number of miniatures listed as being in the manuscript quietly increased to
130, a correction of Hanna's earlier mistabulation.
Though Vincent Smith (1848-I920) had seen only a few of Hanna's paint-
ings in reproduction, he extolled their merit in a brief article in I9I0, but re-
9
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spondedt o Hanna'sb oastfulc laims by stating that the DaraS hikuha ndJ ohn-
son Albums in the India OfficeL ibraryw, hich he had examined,w ere at least
as good as any Mughal painting in Hanna'sc ollection.7S mith also lamented
that the Rdamyanam anuscripth ad not been purchasedb y a museum in Eng-
land or India, despite Hanna'sl ow asking price.
Notwithstanding a gradual increasei n the interest in Indian painting
over the next four decades, the FreerR damyaznar emainedu nnoticed by the
scholarlyw orld until I96I, when RichardE ttinghausen( I906-79), curatoro f
Islamica rta t the FreerG allery,r eproducedt wo of its finestp aintingsi n a slen-
der but seriousp icture book of Indianp aintings.8H is two entriesd rew atten-
tion to the flyleafn ote written by the Khankhanano r commander-in-chieof f
the Mughal armies, 'Abd al-Rahim, who supplied a starting date of A.H.
996/A.D. I587-88 and a completion date of I007/I598-99. Disregarding
Hanna's exuberant claims that the manuscript belonged to Akbar himself,
Ettinghausen used the evidence of the flyleaf note to assert that the Freer man-
uscript was commissioned by 'Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan as a direct copy of
the imperial Ramayana manuscript. Ettinghausen reasoned further that since
the imperialm anuscriptw ould not havel eft the capital,w hich at this time was
Lahore,t he copy must haveb eenp roduceda t the capitala s well; hence,h e dis-
missed the relevanceo f the Khankhanan'as ssignmentst o variousp rovinceso f
the empire in determining the provenanceo f the manuscript.L isting twelve
artistsw hose namesw ere ascribedo n fifty paintings, Ettinghausenn oted that
their names did not appear among the seventeen imperial artists mentioned in
the A'in-i Akbari, and concluded that they must have constituted a workshop
separatef rom the imperial atelier. Each of the ascribed miniatures in the
Rdmdyanan amed a single artist, a fact which led Ettinghausen to differentiate
the working method of this independentw orkshopf rom that of the imperial
atelier, which generally assigned two or more artists to each illustration.
Ettinghausen's observations on the art historical issues presented by
'Abd al-Rahim'sc opy of the Ramayanah ave serveda s the basis for all subse-
quent discussion of the manuscript.9T he most substantive work on the
Ramaya.nat o follow was the I98I exhibition catalogue of the Freer Gallery's
collection of Indian painting, The ImperialI mage,i n which Milo Beach repro-
duced twenty-two pages and the flyleaf along with comparative paintings
from a few other manuscripts associated with the Khankhanan.'?I n relating
the stories of the Ramdyana illustrations, comparing a single example of the
differentn arrativea nds tylistic concernso f the illustrationso f'Abd al-Rahim's
copy with those of the imperial manuscript, and summarizing all that was
known of the artists in 'Abd al-Rahim's atelier, Beach raised many of the is-
sues explored in this study.
About that time I began to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive
study of the manuscript,w hich becamet he focus of my doctorald issertation.
In so doing, I was fortunatee nough to discovera numbero f new dates in the
manuscript, some of which I published in I985 as part of my study of imperial
10
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and subimperialM ughal copies of the Razmndmat,h e Persiant ranslationo f
the MahdbhharataM."o re recently, others have used the illustrations of the
Freerm anuscriptt o gracea lavishlyp roducedr etelling of the Radmdayawnitah
a devotionalo rientationw hich blissfully ignores the historicald imensionso f
the manuscripta nd its Persiant ext.12
Hidden within the Rdmdyanam anuscripta re innumerablet raceso f the
processesb y which the book came into its originala nd presents tate. Our task
as historiansi s to uncovera ndd eciphert hesec luesa s best we can.A ccordingly,
in addition to developing the contextual aspects of 'Abd al-Rahim's Rd-
mdyanaI, havef ollowedt he lead of L.M.J.D elaissei n undertakinga n "archae-
ological"s tudy of the manuscript- an approachs till rarelya pplied to Asian
manuscripts- and havem eticulouslye xaminedt he FreerR dmadyanasa a n ob-
ject, poring overe verya specto f the manuscripti n an effortt o understandt he
impact of contemporaryp ainters,s cribes,a nd ownersu pon the book.13T his
kind of investigationh as the obviousb enefito f making one veryf amiliarw ith
the manuscript,s o that hitherto undetectedo r neglected ascriptions,l abels,
and dates seem to leap out from the folios. Our experienceo f the Rdmdyanias
enricheda s we come to understandt he subtletieso f the creativea ndp ragmatic
decisionsi nvolved in the compositiona nd writing of its text, and the formu-
lation and executiono f the imageryo f its many illustrations.W e cannoth ope
to recreatef ully the conditionsu nderw hich the manuscriptw as initially pro-
duced and used, but at the very least we will become more awareo f our own
historicala nd aesthetica ssumptionsa s we comparet hem to the responseso f
the privileged few who recordedt heir impressionso f the manuscripta nd its
artistsi n earliert imes.
The focus upon the FreerR dmdyanaa nd other manuscriptsa ssociated
with 'Abd al-Rahim introducest hree majori ssues of Indian painting. First,
the manuscriptsa ssociatedw ith this high-rankingn oble constitute the most
coherentc orpuso f Mughalp ainting producedf or a patrono utside the imper-
ial family. This allows us to assesst he role of artistsd ismissedb y the imperial
atelieri n the creationo f a transitionals tyle of Indianp ainting, broadlyc alled
PopularM ughal painting, which ultimately disseminatedM ughal concepts
and forms to regional schools of painting in India. Second,t he avowedr ela-
tionship between the imperial manuscript of the Rdmdyanaa nd 'Abd al-
Rahim'sc opy, separatedb y only a decade,p resentsa n opportunityt o examine
how a group of artistso utside the imperiala telier respondedt o the existence
of a specific imperial model. Finally, the extensive written and visual docu-
mentationf or the paintingsp roducedb y 'Abd al-Rahim'sa telieri nvites com-
parisont o the imperialw orkshop.L imited to a single patron,a periodo f some
thirty years,a nd only a handfulo f manuscripts,t his body of materiala ffords
an ideal test caset o interpretv ariationsi n the style of painting. In short,w hat
meaning did the subject matter and style of these manuscripti llustrations
hold for this seventeenth-centuryp atrona nd his artists?
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