This is a revealing miniature painting from the 1610s, which shows the Mughal Emperor Jahangir receiving a gift of a holy book from a Sufi Shaikh. We see lots of religious iconography, including halos and angels and an intriguing hourglass which serves as the Emperor’s seat. Crucially, at a time when the EIC’s Sir Thomas Roe had just been appointed as the Company’s first Ambassador to the Mughal Court, King James I is clearly seen in a ‘queue’ to be received by Jahangir, following the Shaikh and the Ottoman Emperor, and artist Bichitr himself.

Lesson resources available for this object.