European Costume Scene

This painting of European subjects by an unnamed Indian artist depicts an unidentified scene in which two merchants approach a pavilion where a seated lady receives a kneeling holy man unrolling a scroll before her. The figures wear garments associated with different periods, which increases the painting’s ambiguity. The distant cityscape in the upper left corner is a Mughal version of the type introduced into India by Jesuit missionaries who brought gifts of European paintings and engravings.