2-735-657 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Musicians and Servants Outside a Royal Encampment (recto), c. 1485. This unfinished painting—the left side of a double-page composition—shows a group of musicians on the far side of a stream and figures trying to gain entry to the royal encampment on the near side. Below, a cook prepares meat on a brazier while a servant holds a stick of kabobs over a dish. One man has fallen to the ground, probably intoxicated. One of the most famed painters from the Timurid court, Bihzad is known for his carefully balanced compositions and precise draftsmanship, and other artists emulated his style. After his death his works were regarded as the exemplars of Persian painting, both in Iran and in Mughal India, whose emperors collected his work.