The heroic death in battle of Rani Durgavati. Painting from the Akbarnama, 1590-1595.

Depicts Asaf Khan in battle with the forces of Rani Durgavati, ruler of the Gond Kingdom of Middle India, in 1564. The image is overlaid with two panels of text extending from the upper and lower right hand margin.

Date: 1590-1595 (painted)

Artist/Maker:
Kesav Kalan (possibly, artist)
Nar Singh (possibly, artist)

Materials and Techniques:
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper

This painting by the Mughal court artists Kesav Kalan and Nar Singh shows Asaf Khan leading the Mughal forces in 1564 against Rani Durgavati, the ruler of the Gond Kingdom of Middle India. Asaf Khan was vizier to the Mughal emperor Akbar (r.1556–1605) and a highly effective military leader. The female ruler of the Gond tribe fell to Mughal forces after a fiercely contested battle, leading Akbar to admire her extraordinary bravery. This image is the left half of a double-page illustration, the right half being Museum no. IS.2:35-1896.

It is an illustration from the Akbarnama (Book of Akbar), commissioned by Akbar as the official chronicle of his reign. The Akbarnama was written in Persian by his court historian and biographer, Abu’l Fazl, between 1590 and 1596, and the V&A’s partial copy of the manuscript is thought to have been illustrated between about 1592 and 1595. This is thought to be the earliest illustrated version of the text, and drew upon the expertise of some of the best royal artists of the time. Many of these are listed by Abu’l Fazl in the third volume of the text, the A’in-i Akbari, and some of these names appear in the V&A illustrations, written in red ink beneath the pictures, showing that this was a royal copy made for Akbar himself. After his death, the manuscript remained in the library of his son Jahangir, from whom it was inherited by Shah Jahan.

The V&A purchased the manuscript in 1896 from Frances Clarke, the widow of Major General John Clarke, who bought it in India while serving as Commissioner of Oudh between 1858 and 1862.

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