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Synopsis This volume brings to light, besides an elaborate textual part viewing the entire material from a fresh angle, some rare unpublished masterpieces of Mugal and Deccani art-schools, such as the Hamzanama folio and the portrait of Abdulla Qutb Shah, which the National Museum, New Delhi, has in its collection. The publication, though basically a catalogue, is different in it's approach to the most of books available on the subject. Besides evaluating each painting aesthetically bringing out its visual and physical traits, the author has tried to read through the lines, colours and forms for arriving at its thematic depth, and for apprehending the contemporary social, political and religious conditions which influenced and found reflections in it. The role which the personality initiating, encouraging and patronising the paintings contained in the book played, and the impact of the local geography and surroundings, imparting them their distinction as Mughal and Deccani, despite that the inspiration and source of both were Islamic, or more so, the Safavid Persian, have not escaped author's observation.