Shah Jahan on a Terrace, Holding a Pendant Set With His Portrait — Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Emperor Shah Jahan in profile on a marble terrace, dressed in soft pink and crowned with the imperial halo, contemplating a jewelled pendant set with his own miniature portrait. Cherubs hover above — Mughal painting's quiet absorption of European angelic iconography, here marking divine kingship. The garden and watercourse beyond suggest the new emperor's vision of paradise on earth.

The folio is dated 1627–28 — Shah Jahan's earliest known dated portrait, painted within months of his accession. It is the work of Chitarman (active ca. 1627–70), and represents his very first year in the imperial workshops. Persian calligraphy on the verso is from a generation earlier (ca. 1530–50). The folio was later bound into the Shah Jahan Album, the most ambitious imperial album the Mughal court ever assembled.

The pendant Shah Jahan holds is part of the iconography of imperial favour — jewels set with the emperor's likeness were given as gifts to high courtiers, a Mughal version of a knighthood. Here, the gift is to himself: the new sovereign contemplating his own newly-minted image.

Restored from the museum archives by aurahliving.com.