Painting

This Mughal painting was done in about 1615-1620 and therefore dates from the reign of Jahangir (r. 1605-27). In the mid-18th century, it was mounted in an album now called the 'Small Clive Album', because of its connection with Robert Clive, and given new decorative borders. The scene is identified by Katherine Butler Schofield as a princely gathering of a kind called mehfil, in which the prince demonstrates his masculine virtue and command through the connoisseurship of pleasurable activities in a paradisical garden – on the left, the companionship of beautiful young men, intoxicating wine, edible delicacies, and both Indian and Iranian music (a singer playing tambura at the top, and a singer and a qanun player at the bottom) – on the right, a servant holds his sword, wrapped in cloth and temporarily beyond use; an elderly Sufi recites to him from a book of poetry or devotion; and a servant holds ready a peregrine falcon for hunting.