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Calligraphy
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Akbar, the third Mughal emperor of India, commissioned an illustrated copy of the Chingiz-nama, a historical text written in Persian during the early 1300s by a Jewish scholar who converted to Islam. The Chingiz-nama is an account of the conquests of Akbar’s ancestors, the Mongols, who swept across the Asian continent from Siberia to the Mediterranean Sea during the 1200s. This page describes the final momentous defeat of the caliph of Baghdad, the religious head of Sunni Islam and political leader of the Abbasid dynasty, with the names of all the caliphs who came before him listed in red at the top.
| Artist / Maker | Basavana |
|---|---|
| Date | c. 1596 |
| Culture / Origin | Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605) |
| Medium | Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper |
| Dimensions | Image: 34 x 20 cm (13 3/8 x 7 7/8 in.); Overall: 38.5 x 25 cm (15 3/16 x 9 13/16 in.); with mat: 49 x 36.3 cm (19 5/16 x 14 5/16 in.) |
| Department | Indian and Southeast Asian Art |
| Type | Calligraphy |
About the Artist
Basavana (Indian, active c. 1560–1600) Full biography →
Provenance & Source
Image & data: Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0 / Public Domain.
Condition
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