Mughal Painting Lecture

Sonya Quintanilla, George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, explores the interests and personalities of royal Mughal patrons through the works they commissioned from imperial artists in a lavishly illustrated lecture titled Stories within Stories through Paintings from Mughal India. This lecture is part of Emory’s South Asia Seminar series and is co-sponsored by the Carlos Museum.
In this lavishly illustrated lecture, the story of the Mughals unfolds through the imagery in paintings they commissioned from their imperial artists. Further insight into the interests and personalities of royal Mughal patrons can be gleaned from the stories they chose for vibrant and extensive illumination. In the paintings of adventure tales and histories favored by the third Mughal emperor Akbar between 1556 and 1605, his preoccupations, interests, and concerns come to light. His son Jahangir’s love of mystical biographies and the national epic of Iran signals a shift in style and subject in Mughal painting of the 17th century. Eighteenth century Mughal paintings were dominated by images of women and pleasurable pastimes that dominated until the ascendancy of the British and ideals of the modern western Enlightenment.
The event is co-sponsored by: The Hightower Fund

http://www.carlos.emory.edu/education/public-programs/adult-programs