Akbar Receives Trophies of War from Asaf Khan

This is the right side of a double-page composition designed by Miskina, one of the greatest artists of the Mughal court. The details were painted by Nanha. Together with Museum no. IS.2:52-1896, it depicts the Mughal emperor Akbar (r.1556–1605) encamped before the River Ganges in north-east India. From 1565 to 1567 Akbar was occupied in suppressing rebellion by disaffected Uzbek officers in his service in the eastern provinces of the empire. He took the field in May 1565 and succeeded in driving the rebels out of the territory. When Akbar encamped at Jaunpur during the campaign, he was joined by his leading general Asaf Khan and other officers, who presented the emperor with rare gifts from the region, and with horses from Iran and Turkey.

The painting is an illustration from the Akbarnama (Book of Akbar), commissioned by Akbar as the official chronicle of his reign. The Akbarnama was written in Persian by Akbar’s court historian and biographer, Abu’l Fazl, between 1590 and 1596, and the V&A’s partial copy of the manuscript is thought to have been illustrated between about 1592 and 1595. This is thought to be the earliest illustrated version of the text, and drew upon the expertise of some of the best royal artists of the time. Many of these are listed by Abu’l Fazl in the third volume of the text, the A’in-i Akbari, and some of these names appear in the V&A illustrations, written in red ink beneath the pictures, showing that this was a royal copy made for Akbar himself. After his death, the manuscript remained in the library of his son Jahangir, from whom it was inherited by Shah Jahan.

The V&A purchased the manuscript in 1896 from Frances Clarke, the widow of Major General John Clarke, who bought it in India while serving as Commissioner of Oudh between 1858 and 1862.