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Oval portrait of a woman in a Chaghtai hat
c. 1740–50
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 9.5 x 7.4 cm (3 3/4 x 2 15/16 in.)
- Culture
- India, Mughal, 18th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of J. H. Wade
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The tall, flat-topped hat is an element of the native dress of the Mughals from eastern Uzbekistan. Of mixed Turkic and Mongol ethnicities, they spoke a Turkic language known as Chaghatai. Chaghatai refers to the name of the son of the Mongol Chingiz (Genghis) Khan, who ruled this area of Central Asia from 1246 to 1282.
This woman’s hat has been studded with jewels and strings of pearls. The portrait jewel format that was once reserved for the emperor has now been expanded to include ladies of the court. The woman holds a jade wine cup and wears a draped upper garment with a woven or embroidered border similar to the fragment on display at the left.
