Painting

This folio has been detached from a late 16th century manuscript copy of the Baburnama, or History of Babur. Babur was the founder of the Mughal empire, and a prince descended from the Central Asian conqueror Timur. He wrote a lively memoir in Eastern Turkish rather than Persian, the language of culture and literature of his time and place and which he also knew well. By the late 16th century, when his grandson Akbar had consolidated Mughal rule in the Indian subcontinent, few people at court were able to understand the memoirs in their original language, and Akbar commissioned a Persian translation. This was completed in 1589 by the great bibliophile Abdul-Rahim, who presented it to Akbar on the emperor's return from visiting Babur's tomb in Kabul. Many copies were made, some illustrated at the time by Akbar's artists.