Home > Digitized Walters Manuscripts

This document is a tranformation of a TEI P5 XML manuscript description incorporating images. If you have trouble reading special or non-Latin characters on this page, please make sure you have appropriate Unicode fonts installed and an up-to-date web browser.

Walters Ms. W.865, Single leaf of a nilgai

Browse images (Browse images in a new window) | TEI in XML format

Shelf mark

W.865


Manuscript

Single leaf of a nilgai


Text title
A nilgai

Abstract

This painting of a nilgai (also called a blue bull or Boselaphus tragocamelus), which is an antelope indigenous to Asia, is attributable to the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1037-1068 AH / 1627-1658 CE). Such animal studies were popular commissions among the Mughal emperors, who showed a marked curiosity about the natural world in their royal histories. Patronage of paintings of flora, fauna, and animals received a particular impetus under the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1014-1037 AH / 1605-27 CE) and was continued under later Mughals. The detailed foliage in the foreground and the light green background are comparable to other studies of single animals dating to c. 1049 AH / 1640 CE.


Date

1031-1059 AH / 1625-1650 CE


Origin

India


Form

Leaf


Genre

Historical


Language:

No linguistic content; Not applicable


Extent

Foliation: Not applicable


Dimensions

27.9 cm wide by 21.0 cm high


Contents:
fols. W.865a - W.865b:
  1. Title: A nilgai

Decoration:

fol. W.865a:

  1. W.865, fol. W.865a
  2. Title: A nilgai
  3. Form: Painting
  4. Label: This painting of a nilgai (also called a blue bull or Boselaphus tragocamelus), which is an antelope indigenous to Asia, is attributable to the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1037-1068 AH / 1627-1658 CE).

fol. W.865b:

  1. W.865, fol. W.865b
  2. Title: A nilgai (back)
  3. Form: Back

Acquisition

Gift of John and Berthe Ford, 2001


Bibliography

Pal, Pratapaditya, and Hiram W. Woodward. Desire and Devotion: Art from India, Nepal, and Tibet in the John and Berthe Ford Collection. (London: Phillip Wilson, 2001), 152.


Contributors

Principal cataloger: Gacek, Adam

Catalogers: Landau, Amy; Smith, Sita

Editor: Bockrath, Diane

Conservators: Jewell, Stephanie; Quandt, Abigail

Contributors: Barrera, Christina; Emery, Doug; Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William; Simpson, Shreve; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.; Valle, Chiara


Publisher

The Walters Art Museum


License

Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.