Victoria and Albert Akbarnama
The Victoria and Albert Akbarnāma or First Akbar-nāma is the first illustrated manuscript of the Akbarnama, the history of the Mughal ruler Akbar and his ancestors from the pen of Abul Fazl.
Even before Abul Fazl had completed his text, the already drafted chapters were copied by a calligrapher and illustrated in the royal studios.
This haste meant that massive changes had to be made to the already illustrated manuscript following a revision of the work by the author.
The second volume, with 116 images depicting events during the period between 1560 and 1577, is now kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum under the inventory number I.S.
169, verso) there is an informal note which reads: "completed at the command of ...(illegible)... in the month Day of the year 40".
[2] In addition to this small inscription, several seals and handwritten annotations on the recto of the first folio[3] Notes on the further whereabouts of the manuscript: Jahangir confirms in an autograph that he took over the work shortly after his accession to the throne and classifies this Akbar-nāma as a particularly valuable manuscript of "first class second degree".
[4][5] Next, Aurangzeb had his seal affixed to the volume in 1668/69, after which the work disappeared from the imperial library at an unspecified date.
The second volume remained in India until it was discovered by Major General Clarke, who was a senior administrative officer in the province of Awadh from 1858 to 1862.
[8] The fragmentary manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum comprises 273 folios with 116 illustrations and an illuminated frontispiece.
[10] At the time of its acquisition by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the manuscript had already partially disintegrated into its individual folios, which were loosely stored between two varnished book covers in a box.
[8] A special feature of the manuscript are the unusually thick image pages and strangely designed text fields on the illustrations.
Sometimes a custode appears on both the front and back of an illustrated folio - an indication that the page was turned over when the book was redesigned, i.e. transformed from a recto into a verso or vice versa.
[12] Abu 'l-Fazl was first commissioned to write the history of Akbar's reign in 1589 and handed over the first part of the text, which covers the period up to 1572, in April 1596.
He had been able to prove that the illustrations are older than the accompanying text and concluded from this that the pictures belong to an earlier, unknown Akbar story - a thesis that Milo Beach, a former director of the Freer Gallery of Art, had already put forward in 1981.
[16] The dating of the illustrations can therefore be carried out independently of the composition of the Akbar-nāma according to purely stylistic aspects.
[1] After a detailed consideration of the artistic characteristics, he places the miniatures between the Tārīkh-i khāndān-i Tīmūriyya of 1584/86 and the Rāmāyana of 1589, whereby he considers a creation in the years 1586/87 to be probable.
[17] Susan Stronge, curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, disagrees with Seyller's statements.
In her research, she has come to the conclusion that the text for which the images were originally produced is merely one of the older versions of Abū 'l-Fazl's work.
Seyller's conclusions tie in with Milo Beach's considerations that the illustrations of the First Akbar-nāma could have been intended for an earlier biography of Akbar, possibly a kind of continuation of the History of the Descendants of Timur (pers.
[22] In fact, a number of the same painters were involved in both manuscripts: Basawan, Laʿl, Miskin, Jagan and Kesav Kalan were responsible for the composition here and there.
The close relationship between the two manuscripts is also evident in the "Battle of Sarnal", while the corresponding illustration in the "Second Akbar-nāma" looks completely different.
Here the forest of thorns has shrunk into a compact hedge and most of the riders are galloping along quite uniformly with their sabres drawn.
Only one detached illustration belongs to a later event (April 1578); it is kept in the British Library (Johnson Album 8.4) and immediately follows the series in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The pictures in the Victoria and Albert Museum reflect the events from the 5th to the 22nd year of Akbar's reign.
Finally, five miniatures dealing with Akbar's nurse Māham Anaga and her sons (88, 89, 95, 96, 109) testify to the importance of the milk kinship.
In order to ensure a correct and presentable depiction of Akbar or other high personalities, specialists were also employed for the faces (pers.
Specialists for the faces were above all Mādhav (seven pictures, including one with eight portraits), Basāwan (four), Kesav Kalān (three), Miskīn(ā) (five), and Nānhā, Sanwāla, Mukund (one each).
On a total of 15 pictures in the Victoria and Albert manuscript, there are still recognizable remnants of notes which prove that the production process took between 42 (no.
The identification of the scene with the end of the siege of Mankot was made by assigning various elements: a fortress in the mountains from which palanquins and other things are being carried, Akbar's very youthful appearance and Bairam Khan with his special headgear from the time of Humayun, whose gestures fit an intercession.
ʿamal: Bhawānī Kalān chihra nāmī: Mādhav [90] formerly appointed by Humayun as governor of Badakhshan, intervenes in Kabul.
