Entering the minaret-like corridors of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Art and Stories from Mughal India exhibit begins a journey through the over-300-year history of the Mughal Empire, a saga told through small illustrations in watercolor and gold, so intricately detailed that you’re offered a magnifying glass as you walk. “The third Mughal emperor Akbar was not able to read and couldn’t write, and yet this was a court culture that valued being learned in classics and histories and art,” says Sonya Quintanilla, George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art. “He therefore required a large number of paintings to be able to internalize the treasury of Persian literature and Arabic poetry.” Before you head to the exhibit, which runs through Oct. 23, here is a primer on three pieces you'll see.
Nur Jahan holding a portrait of Emperor Jahangir, 1627
Nur Jahan, pictured above in this watercolor holding a portrait of her late husband, Jahangir, essentially ruled the Mughal Empire at the height of its power until her husband’s death when the throne was ceded to his son from a different marriage. “The images of Mughal women actually show a much more powerful kind of female figure that we normally think of as part of an Islamic regime,” says Quintanilla. She points to the details of Nur Jahan’s stance — “this beautiful flowing scarf that seems to waft out with an energy of its own, her feet standing together with one toe flexed up” — that suggest an inner strength and power. “It’s not a static depiction at all,” she says. “It’s somber, but you still sense her energy.”
The parrot mother cautions her young on the danger of playing with foxes, recto of folio 32 from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot), 1560
Throughout the 215 illustrations and 52 fables in the watercolor and ink Tuti-nama manuscript — nama meaning “tales of,” and tuti meaning “parrot” — a parrot tells his mistress story after story to keep her home at night, rather than going out to meet her lover. “[It] is probably one of the single most important Mughal documents in the world [and] is almost completely in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art,” says Quintanilla. “It seems to be the first manuscript that Akbar commissioned when he came to the throne at the age of 13 and realized he needed more pictures to help him know these stories.”
Zulayka in her palace and as an old woman with Joseph, from a Panj Ganj (Five Treasures),1520
Many visitors to the exhibition may be familiar with the biblical tale of Joseph, an Old Testament prophet who was sold by his jealous brothers into slavery, only to be bought by the pharaoh’s wife, Zulayka. While Joseph may be the star of Western tales, the Islamic traditions tell Zulayka’s tale as well through this illustrated manuscript. “She had been having these dreams about this beautiful man who was going to be her lover,” says Quintanilla. After recognizing Joseph at the slave market and purchasing him, Zulayka sets about seducing him. “We’ve blown it up in a big mural here, because it’s actually a painting of a mural,” says Quintanilla. “She had the paintings on the walls made to depict her and Joseph having fun together as a couple.” Virtuous Joseph resists her advances, but the illustrations’ foreground fast-forwards in time, showing the pair reunited once the pharaoh has died, together at last.