Title: Tent Panel (Qanat) with Standing Female Figure
Date: late 16th century
Location: Mughal India, perhaps Fatehpur Sikri
Materials: silk lampas
Dimensions: 182 x 151cm
Accession Number: TXT [IND] 17
Other Notes:
This impressive textile is a product of the Mughal imperial workshops in the reign of the Emperor Akbar (r 1556–1605). It shows a princess standing under a lobed arch with a beaded border. She is depicted in profile, with her head surrounded by a nimbus. She is in Indian dress – a yellow jama trimmed with green and a green jabot – and holds two sticks, one up and one down.
The piece is a qanat, a panel from a tent, and it may have formed part of a monumental programme of courtly types. A companion panel in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art depicts a male figure in Persian costume holding a cup. Both were evidently from a decorative cycle of monumental figures of courtiers, a later version of the standing figures painted or carved in palace audience halls.
Bibliography:
J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.390, p.330.
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