Balchand
The Death of Inayat Khan
A courtier near death, painted from life.
- Artist
- Balchand
- Date
- October 1618, Agra
- Medium
- Opaque watercolour on paper, mounted in an album
- Where it is
- Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS. Ouseley Add. 171b, f. 4r)
- Kind
- Mughal painting
A wasted man sits propped against bolsters on a white bed. His ribs show and his cheeks have sunk. Everything around him is plain: grey walls, two niches, a carpet border. The painter gave all his care to the body.
Inayat Khan, one of Jahangir’s closest servants, had been brought low by opium, wine and illness. When he was brought before the emperor, Jahangir was so struck by his state that he ordered the court artists to record it. Inayat Khan died the next day, 10 October 1618.
The page carries two inscriptions. Above the carpet border, one in Shah Jahan’s hand names the sitter and calls the picture the work of Balchand; it was later rubbed out and painted over, and computer enhancement of a 1976 colour slide brought more of it back. Balchand wrote his own name on the fold of the sheet hanging over the bedpost, calling himself the slave of the court.
The preliminary drawing is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Balchand was active from about 1595 to 1650 and is known, like his brother Payag, for dark realism.
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