Painting from the Akbarnama, the battle preceding the capture of the fort at Bundu, gouache on paper, Mughal, India, 1590-1595.

This painting by the Mughal court artist Tulsi Kalan depicts the battle preceding the capture of Bundi fort in north-western India by the Mughal army in 1577. It is an illustration to the Akbarnama (Book of Akbar), commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar (r.1556–1605) as the official chronicle of his reign.

The Akbarnama was written in Persian by Akbar’s court historian and biographer, Abu’l Fazl, between 1590 and 1596, and the V&A’s partial copy of the manuscript is thought to have been illustrated between about 1592 and 1595. This is thought to be the earliest illustrated version of the text, and drew upon the expertise of some of the best royal artists of the time. Many of these are listed by Abu’l Fazl in the third volume of the text, the A’in-i Akbari, and some of these names appear in the V&A illustrations, written in red ink beneath the pictures, showing that this was a royal copy made for Akbar himself. After his death, the manuscript remained in the library of his son Jahangir, from whom it was inherited by Shah Jahan.

The V&A purchased the manuscript in 1896 from Frances Clarke, the widow of Major General John Clarke, who bought it in India while serving as Commissioner of Oudh between 1858 and 1862.

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