Princes hunting in a rocky landscape, c. 1580–85; borders added c. 1700s
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Princes hunting in a rocky landscape

c. 1580–85; borders added c. 1700s

Medium
Ink, slight color, and gold on paper
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Image: 26.4 x 15.8 cm (10 3/8 x 6 1/4 in.); Overall: 40.5 x 26 cm (15 15/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
Culture
India, Mughal, 16th century
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Credit line
Edward L. Whittemore Fund
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

The subdued palette of this tinted drawing belies the dire events of the scene. A group of Mughal nobles out hunting with falcons has chanced upon two lions in the wilderness, and one of the men has been attacked. The bearded figure with the falcon at the upper left and the huntsman about to retrieve a duck caught by one of the trained falcons at the lower left are reminiscent of an earlier work, Hunting with Falcons in a Landscape (CMA 2013.292), painted by a Persian artist. By the time this painting was made Akbar exerted more direct influence on his artists’ work, and it reveals his taste for dramatic action and climactic moments where life and death hang in the balance.