Painting in Mughal India 1550-1650

The Mughal (Muslim) rulers of north India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries presided over what was then the richest, most cosmopolitan culture in the world. The earliest rulers were open-minded and intellectually voracious; they brought together Persian, Turkish, and a variety of indigenous Indian traditions to create a distinctive new way of representing and living in the world. This cultural interaction, and the important role played by Portuguese missionaries and English traders, will be the focus of this seminar.