Babur's Enthronement at Farghana, 1494 | Restored Mughal Wall Art

The young Babur seated on a golden throne, a white-bearded vizier offering counsel from the side, attendants in jewelled robes ringed around him. Behind, sumptuous brocade hangings and a peacock; beyond, a stretch of gold-flecked screen. The composition has the quiet weight of a state portrait.

The scene depicts Babur's first enthronement — in Ramadan AH 899 (June 1494), at age eleven, as ruler of his father's kingdom of Farghana in the Fergana Valley (modern Uzbekistan). Babur would later twice take Samarkand (1497, 1500–1501) and twice lose it before founding the Mughal Empire in India in 1526. This is the moment everything began.

From the Baburnama — Babur's own autobiography, the first true memoir in Islamic literature, written in Chaghatai Turkish around 1530 and translated into Persian for the Mughal court by Akbar's grand vizier Abd al-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan. This folio was painted in the imperial atelier of Emperor Akbar circa 1590.

Restored from the museum archives by aurahliving.com.

Landscape orientation — 20×16 in frame.