Adham Khan

The painting is from the Akbarnama (Book of Akbar), commissioned by Akbar as the official chronicle of his reign. The Akbarnama was written in Persian by his 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 generally seen as tthe earliest illustrated version of the text, illustrated by the leading court artists of the time. Many of these are listed by Abu’l Fazl in the third volume of the Akbarnamat, the A’in-i Akbari, and some of these names appear in the V&A illustrations, written in red ink beneath the pictures, demonstrating 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.