Portraits of 'A Noble Queen': The Romance of History in 18th-century Indian Painting

Deborah Hutton, Visiting Berg Distinguished Professor will present Portraits of “A Noble Queen”:  The Romance of History in 18th-century Indian Painting on Wednesday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in the Screening Room of Cornerstone.

The 16th-century Indo-Islamic queen, Chand Bibi, was valorized both during her life and posthumously for her heroic defense of the Deccan city of Ahmednagar against the invading armies of the Mughal Empire. During the 18th century, she became a common subject of paintings, which repeatedly depict her hawking on horseback. Indeed, the imagery is so standardized and ubiquitous that art historians have paid the paintings scant attention. But is Chand Bibi’s depiction really so straightforward and banal? If the defense of Ahmednagar is the event for which she is remembered, why are there no paintings of her in battle? Why does she emerge as a subject for painting a century after she lived? In this talk, Hutton analyzes portraits of Chand Bibi as a way of exploring the larger changes to Indian painting during the 18th century and the role of such images in creating what we might classify as a “shared historical imaginary” of the early modern Deccan.

Sponsored by the Harold E. Berg Endowment