Persian miniaturists Mir Sayyid ʿAli and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad emigrated to Humayun’s court and helped lay the foundations of Mughal painting; under Akbar they trained and supervised imperial artists, establishing the stylistic base later developed in Akbar’s atelier.
During Akbar’s reign, a large imperial workshop (karkhana) was developed and staffed with artists recruited across India, with early supervision linked to Mir Sayyid ʿAli and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad; Akbar is noted for regularly inspecting and rewarding artists, shaping a distinct imperial style.
Akbar ordered an unusually large-scale illustrated Hamzanama (Dastan-e Amir Hamza), ultimately comprising about 1,400 paintings and produced over roughly 1562–1577—a defining early project for the imperial atelier and a key driver of its collaborative production methods.
Around 1572, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad is widely described as replacing Mir Sayyid ʿAli in a supervisory role over major imperial painting production (including the ongoing Hamzanama), reflecting the formalization of workshop leadership as large projects continued.
After roughly fourteen years of coordinated workshop work, the Hamzanama illustration campaign is generally dated as completed by 1577, standing as a landmark achievement in early Mughal imperial painting in scale, narration, and atelier organization.
A celebrated illustrated manuscript of Saʿdi’s Gulistan (Royal Asiatic Society, Persian 258) was copied at Fatehpur Sikri in 990 AH (1582–1583) under Akbar, exemplifying the atelier’s luxury-book production and refined integration of painting and calligraphy.
Akbar’s official history, the Akbarnama, was commissioned from Abu’l-Fazl in 1589, creating a major new text that would soon drive high-profile illustration programs within the imperial workshop.
A lavishly illustrated Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208) was created for Akbar in the early 1590s, with over forty miniatures credited to multiple artists—evidence of the mature atelier’s capacity for sustained, high-quality manuscript cycles.
The Victoria and Albert Museum’s illustrated Akbarnama (IS.2-1896) is commonly dated for its paintings to c. 1592–1594 (with scholarly debate), representing a major late-Akbar manuscript project with many named imperial artists contributing.
A surviving illustrated Razmnama (Persian Mahabharata), British Library Or. 12076, was copied in 1007 AH (1598–1599) and includes a set of high-quality paintings attributed to named artists, showing continued imperial (and sub-imperial) demand for illustrated epic translation projects.
Inscriptions indicate the Gulshan Album (Muraqqaʿ-e Gulshan) was probably begun about 1599 by Prince Salim (the future Jahangir) and continued into the early 1600s, signaling a shift toward album culture—portraits, studies, and collected images—alongside (and increasingly replacing) large illustrated books.
With Jahangir’s accession, court taste emphasized portraiture and highly finished studies; the tradition of extensively illustrated books diminished relative to Akbar’s era, while elite paintings (portraits, court scenes, and nature studies) became central to atelier output.
The Gulshan Album project is described as continuing until about 1609, reflecting the sustained role of albums (muraqqaʿ) in Jahangir’s cultural program and the collecting, curating, and remounting of paintings and calligraphy from varied sources.
Jahangir-era painting is marked by exceptional observation of flora and fauna, with leading court artists such as Abu’l Hasan and Mansur credited on works like Squirrels in a Plane Tree (British Library), dated around 1610, exemplifying the period’s refined naturalism and collaborative authorship.
Jahangir’s Persian autobiography, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Jahangirnama), was composed in stages through most of his life until 1622; his own manuscript was described as being magnificently illustrated by his studio, with many images later dispersed into albums.
Jahangir died in 1627, marking the end of the era in which his personal connoisseurship—portraiture, court imagery, and closely observed nature studies—set the dominant direction for imperial Mughal painting following Akbar’s foundational atelier model.
Imperial Mughal painting: Akbar to Jahangir's ateliers (1560–1627)
