Portrait of Mahābat Khān (d. 1634) (recto), Persian calligraphy by Mīr `Alī (verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album

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Portrait of Mahābat Khān (d. 1634) (recto), Persian calligraphy by Mīr `Alī (verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album. Zamāna Beg (d. 1634) was the son of a nobleman from Shiraz in Iran, and became an important statesman at the Mughal court in India, serving both Jahangir and Shah Jahan. As his career progressed, Zamāna Beg was awarded the title Mahābat Khān, and in 1624 was made Khānkhānān (Lord of Lords), the highest military position. Many of the Mughal emperors ordered full-length profile portraits of senior court figures, arranged together in albums (muraqqa`). This folio comes from an album produced for Shah Jahan towards the end of his reign (c. 1650-1658), and referred to as the “Late Shah Jahan Album”. Now dismantled, the album’s grand format folios are today dispersed in public and private collections worldwide, with twenty folios in the Chester Beatty. The album layout was planned with matching artworks facing each other: calligraphy opposite calligraphy, paintings opposite paintings. These artworks were rarely contemporary with the album project: they have been assembled, and are presented together as a carefully curated collection. As with other Mughal albums, the borders are a very significant part of the Late Shah Jahan Album’s presentation, with a consistent visual theme continuing throughout the folios. In this album, colourful border paintings may amplify the central image, or embed it within a contemporary Mughal design. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on album page with painted borders, Persian calligraphy (qiṭ`a) in nasta`liq script, signed Mīr `Alī al-Haravī (“al-`abd al-faqīr al-mudhannib `Alī al-Kātib”), on marbled paper with added gold backdrop illumination of lotus floral scrollwork, with border paintings of horned goats and gold-outlined flowering plants (on recto), portrait of Zamāna Beg (d. 1634), entitled Mahābat Khān, standing with head in profile and hand resting on a straight sword, unsigned, with border paintings of seven companions armed with swords, shields or daggers, and gold flowering plants (on verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album, calligraphy possibly Herat (Afghanistan) or Bukhara (Uzbekistan), c. 1500-1545, recto painting and album page, Agra, India, c. 1650-1658.