Cleveland Museum of Art

A blindfolded suitor is brought before a princess (recto)

Fayzullah

Date

1755

Medium

Gum tempera and gold on paper

Culture

India, Lucknow, Mughal, 18th century

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

In a scene set on a carpeted terrace in the women’s palace quarters, an older woman of the harem drags a young prince with a white blindfold over his eyes before a princess grasping a document. Such a scene evokes a literary allusion of a princess who selects her suitor, but it also resonates with circumstances at the Mughal court. Signed and dated by the artist, this painting was completed at a time when powerful women wielded control over the emperor, and Ahmad Shah Bahadur (reigned 1748–54), son and successor of Muhammad Shah, had been blinded and deposed less than one year before. A gigantic crocodile swallows a horse and rider attempting to cross the river.

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