MansurPainting
May one see it?
Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel
Victoria and Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
- In this state since
- Sep 25, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
The painting of a North American turkey cock (Meleagris gallopavo) done for the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) is a record of the arrival of this exotic bird at the court in 1612. Jahangir had asked his friend, the high-ranking noble Muqarrab Khan, to procure rarities of any kind at the port of Cambay, on the western coast, and in 1612 a consignment of exotic birds and animals caused a sensation. Jahangir recorded this in his memoirs, written in Persian. The English translation is by Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge: "as these animals appeared to me to be very strange, I both described them and ordered that painters should draw them in the Jahangir-nama ["Book of Jahangir", his memoirs], so that the amazement that arose from hearing of them might be increased. One of these animals in body is larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock.
Read on
When it is in heat and displays itself, it spreads out its feathers like the peacock and dances about. Its beak and legs are like those of a cock. Its head and neck and the part under the throat are every minute of a different colour. When it is in heat it is quite red - one might say it had adorned itself with red coral - and after a while it becomes white in the same places and looks like cotton. It sometimes looks of a turquoise colour. Like a chameleon it constantly changes colour." The painting, signed by the leading artist of the court Mansur, was preserved in an album, probably created during the reign of Jahangir when the floral borders were added to it. At an unknown date the album was dismembered, and this page was part of a group of folios bequeathed to the museum in 1921 by Lady Wantage.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- IM.135-1921
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 3 days ago
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
