# Princess and attendant in trompe l’oeil window

- By: Aqil Khan (Indian, active mid-1700s)
- Date: c. 1765
- Medium: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Image: 12.5 x 7.8 cm (4 15/16 x 3 1/16 in.); Overall: 44 x 31.6 cm (17 5/16 x 12 7/16 in.)
- Culture: Mughal India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow
- Credit line: Gift of George P. Bickford
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1955.297)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1955.297/1955.297_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

A golden window shade has been rolled up to reveal a princess seated on a terrace. The carpet draped over the sill echoes that of the balcony rail where royals would show themselves to the public. Rather than taking the view of an outsider, the viewer looks from inside the palace out to the women and the wooded landscape beyond.

During the mid-1600s, the Mughal court introduced a preference for the patterns on carpets and textiles: flowering plants on a plain ground. This influential fashion derived from their appreciation of European botanical studies that merchants and diplomats brought to India.