The Indian Portrait

The role of the portrait in India between 1560 and 1860 served as an official chronicle or eye-witness account, as a means of revealing the intimate moments of everyday life, and as a tool for propaganda. Yet the proliferation and mastery of Indian portraiture in the Mughal and Rajput courts brought a new level of artistry and style to the genre. The rise of the 'observed' portrait, brought about largely through European influences,enabled Mughal artists to address realism, which in turn led to the 'empathy' portrait. This depicted the sitter as a psychological entity for the first time in Indian art, revealing an individual's fallibility and compassion, or simply recorded how sitters really looked. The Indian portrait is thus the sophisticated product of indigenous development and foreign influence. These beautifully reproduced paintings are a record of a rich and complex history, embracing influences from Iran to Europe, as well as Hindu and Muslim traditions. Bringing together over sixty works, this book celebrates the beauty, power and humanity of Indian portraits, demonstrating how the Indian portrait stands shoulder to shoulder with the best examples of portraiture from around the world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------