A Banquet Scene from the Tarikh-i-Alfi | Restored Mughal Wall Art

A courtly banquet under a red canopy: the host enthroned on a low dais, attendants arrayed in tiered ranks, food and wine carried in from the lower terrace. Below, the page slips into a column of Naskhi script — the painting and text together, as the Mughal imperial atelier loved to compose them.

Painted ca. 1592-94 for the Tarikh-i-Alfi — the "History of the Millennium," an ambitious world history commissioned by the Emperor Akbar to mark the first thousand years of the Islamic era. The imperial atelier produced its most lavishly illustrated copy of the manuscript, of which this folio survives.

Restored from the museum archives by aurahliving.com.