The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Vertically oriented painting with gold detailing depicting two women with medium-light skin tones facing our right outside a square window. A window shade rolls up and a carpet drapes over the window ledge, both gold with a red flower pattern. One woman sits, draped in jewelry, while the other stands behind her. Green foliage transitions to a cloudy, grey sky behind. A plain beige then two colorful floral borders run around the window.

Princess and attendant in trompe l’oeil window

c. 1765

Aqil Khan

(Indian, active mid-1700s)
Mughal India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Image: 12.5 x 7.8 cm (4 15/16 x 3 1/16 in.); Overall: 44 x 31.6 cm (17 5/16 x 12 7/16 in.)
Gift of George P. Bickford 1955.297
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Unlike in portraits of the emperor, women sit on the outside of the royal window.

Description

A golden window shade has been rolled up to reveal a princess seated on a terrace. The carpet draped over the sill echoes that of the balcony rail where royals would show themselves to the public. Rather than taking the view of an outsider, the viewer looks from inside the palace out to the women and the wooded landscape beyond.

During the mid-1600s, the Mughal court introduced a preference for the patterns on carpets and textiles: flowering plants on a plain ground. This influential fashion derived from their appreciation of European botanical studies that merchants and diplomats brought to India.
  • ?–1955
    George Bickford [1901–1991] and Clara Louise Gehring Bickford [1903–1985], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1955–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Ward, William E. "Two Rajput Paintings and a Rajput Textile." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 43, no. 4 (1956): 62–65. Mentioned: pp. 62–65; Reproduced: p. 63 www.jstor.org
    Lee, Sherman. "The Decorative and the Super-Real: Two Rajasthani Miniatures." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 44, no. 8 (October 1957): 180-183. Mentioned: p. 181 www.jstor.org
    Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 47
  • Carpets and Canopies in Mughal India​ (Indian art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 22-September 8, 2024).
    Art and Stories from Mughal India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 31-October 23, 2016).
    Wooster College Exhibition. The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, OH (organizer) (April 5-27, 1970).
  • {{cite web|title=Princess and attendant in trompe l’oeil window|url=false|author=Aqil Khan|year=c. 1765|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1955.297