Images of the Virgin Mary in Mughal Art
Mika Natif
Synopsis:
The Virgin Mary (Maryam) became a popular image among the Mughal ruling elite from the late 16th to the mid-17th century. Her depiction appears in single-page pictures set in albums, on wall paintings in Mughal palaces, and within illustrated manuscripts. This presentation focuses on the links between images of Mary and the articulation of Mughal ancestry, the dynasty’s imperial ideology through the female line, and the images’ relationship to European paintings and prints. The latter were imported to India and were studied by Mughal artists who repurposed Renaissance elements for their own creations of Mughal Marian iconography during the premodern period.
References:
Abu’l Fazl ibn Mubarak, History of Akbar, ed. and trans. Wheeler Thackston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. 
Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542–1773. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Beach, Milo Cleveland. The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1981.
Das, Asok Kumar. Mughal Painting during Jahangir’s Time. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1978.
Koch, Ebba. “The Influence of the Jesuit Missions on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors.” In Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays, ed. Ebba Koch, 1–11. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Natif, Mika. Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters Between Europe and Asia at the Courts of India, 1580–1630. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
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Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, and Interpretations. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Citation:
Mika Natif, “Images of the Virgin Mary in Mughal Art,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, 28 March 2024.
Mika Natif is Associate Professor of Art History at the George Washington University. Her scholarly work focuses on the intercultural exchanges and global connections that Muslim societies forged with Europe during the premodern era. She is the author of Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters Between Europe and Asia at the Courts of India, 1580-1630 (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Her current research explores notions of images, diversity and religious tolerance in the arts of Mughal India, female portraiture, and the role of women as patrons and artists in pre-modern Persiante spheres.