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Synopsis This book tells the story of portrait painting by Indian artists from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. From its beginnings under the Mughal ruler Humayun and his successor Akbar, portraiture progressed to the Hindu courts of Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills, as well as to the Islamic Kingdoms of the Deccan further south. During the period of British rule in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, portraits by Indian artists, often working under western patronage, reached remarkable levels of skill and virtuosity.

Different regions and periods produced strikingly varied styles of portraiture, which are discussed in essays and plate captions that accompany sixty beautifully reproduced paintings. Some of these are among the most celebrated of all Indian works of art, while others are new discoveries that shed further light on this fascinating aspect of Indian painting.