Shah Jahan | Cleveland Museum of Art

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Shah Jahan, c. 1656-1661

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669)

pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, Sheet: 22.5 x 17.1 cm (8 13/16 x 6 11/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.6 x 22.4 cm (10 13/16 x 8 13/16 in.). Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1978.38

Location:

not on view

Description

Rembrandt drew a number of copies after Indian miniature paintings, and he based this sheet on a contemporary work of the Mughal school showing the emperor Shah Jahan (ruled 1628-58). The technique of this work is especially interesting because the artist used a Japanese paper, whose surface absorbs the ink in a very different way from traditional Western papers.

Inscription

verso of secondary support, upper center, in graphite: Portrait of; upper center, in brown ink: Portrait of Sháh Jahán Emperor of Hindustan / [inscription in Arabic]; upper right, in graphite: [Ouseley?] / written by Sir Gore Ou[cropped] 1809; lower left, in graphite: 334; fragment of old mount (now removed), in blue pencil: 3[crossed out with black ink]; fragment of old mount (now removed), in gray ink: Portrait of Sháh Jehán / Emperor of Hindûstan; in black ink: 5[written over 5 in graphite] Indian Prince [underlined]

Exhibition History

Basel 1948, no. 29; cma 1978b; cma 1979a; Cleveland 1980, 14-15, 39, fig. 6; New York 1988, 127-29, no. 34; Los Angeles et al. 1989-91, 195-97, fig. 208.The Cleveland Museum of Art (8/27/00 - 10/17/00); NY, NY: The Pierpont Morgan Library (5/24/01- 8/19/01); Museum of Fine Arts Houston (10/14/01 - 1/6/02); "Master Drawings from The Cleveland Museum of Art", exh. cat. no. 68, pp.168-169; p.293.J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (3/13/2018 - 6/24/2018): 'Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India", Plate 1, p. 80.

Research

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