MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1640

A piece of paper accompanying this painting notes that J.V.S Wilkinson (d.1957) was of the opinion the portrait depicts the Emperor Aurangzeb. This note is dated 19th May 1938, when Wilkinson was a specialist in Oriental Manuscripts at the British Museum (he would later become Librarian at the Chester Beatty Collection in 1946). Meanwhile a note on the mount simply names the subject as a 'Moghul Prince' and dates the work to circa 1640, during the reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1627-1658). The portrait is comparable to another in the Metropolitan Museum of Art identified at the Emperor Aurangzeb (acc.no. 45.174.28). Both are a standing in profile looking to the viewer's right but whilst our portrait shows the subject raising his left hand with a sword in the right, the opposite is shown in the Metropolitan Museum portrait. Another comparable portrait in the Metropolitan Museum depicts Aurangzeb as a prince (acc.no. 2022.182) wearing ringlets in his hair as seen in the present painting. It is also noticeable that both Metropolitan Museum portraits show Aurangzeb as having distinctively shaped ears also depicted in our painting and further supporting the identification.