CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 60 of 120

Correct — D, Bihzad. Kamal ud-Din Bihzad, who lived from about 1455 to 1535, was the supreme master of the Persian miniature, and he never came to India. He worked at Herat under the Timurid Sultan Husayn Bayqara, passed into Safavid service under Shah Ismail I in 1522 and then under Shah Tahmasp I, and died in 1535 — the year Humayun was still fighting Bahadur Shah of Gujarat and more than a decade before Humayun's own painters joined him. Mughal emperors paid large sums for Bihzad's paintings, but that is collecting at a distance, not employment. The other three names are the ones the key treats as Humayun's, and the best documented of them came to him from Shah Tahmasp's own atelier at Tabriz: Mir Sayyid Ali, born at Tabriz in 1510 and a contributor to the great Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, invited into Humayun's service along with Abd al-Samad and reaching him about 1549. Dust Muhammad, the painter known by the epithet musavvir, had been officiating at Humayun's Kabul court since the late 1530s. Maulana Yusuf is far more obscure and is not independently verified here; the answer does not depend on him.

• (a)Mir Sayyid Ali — Genuinely associated with Humayun, and the best-attested of the four. He came from Shah Tahmasp's atelier, where he had worked on the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, joined Humayun's service and later helped direct the Hamzanama under Akbar.
• (b)Maulana Dost Musawir — Also recorded in Humayun's circle. Dust Muhammad the painter, known by the epithet musavvir, had been officiating at Humayun's court in Kabul since the late 1530s.
• (c)Maulana Yusuf — The key treats him as one of the painters of Humayun's circle. He is much the most obscure of the four, and this card does not certify his record independently — which is precisely the pressure the paper is applying, since a candidate unsure about an unfamiliar name may choose it instead of testing the one name he certainly knows. The answer is decided by Bihzad's documented career elsewhere, not by this option.

The Mughal school of painting begins with Humayun's exile. Driven out of India, he spent years at the Safavid court, saw the Tabriz workshop at its height, and recruited from it; when he recovered Delhi in 1555 the painters came with him. Under Akbar that borrowed Persian manner absorbed Indian subject matter, colour and observation, and the vast Hamzanama, directed by Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad, is where the fusion happened. Under Jahangir the school reached its zenith and shifted from illustrated manuscripts to albums, individual portraits and studies of birds and animals.

The reliable move on a which-one-was-not question is to identify the single name that belongs to a different court altogether, rather than to try to verify all four. Bihzad is that name: he is Persian art's central figure, he served Timurid and Safavid patrons, and his death in 1535 is nearly fifteen years before Humayun's recruits reached him. The chronology alone is decisive without any knowledge of the other three. There is a printed detail worth flagging. The paper spells the name 'Bihzad', where a good deal of modern writing prefers 'Behzad'; both are accepted transliterations of the same Herat master, and nothing turns on the difference. It is also worth resisting a common overstatement: Bihzad's influence on Mughal painting was real and large, transmitted through his pupils and through manuscripts the Mughals owned. Influence, however, is not association, and the question asks about the latter.

• Kamal ud-Din Bihzad lived from about 1455 to 1535, worked at Herat under Sultan Husayn Bayqara, entered Safavid service under Shah Ismail I in 1522, and died in 1535.
• He never travelled to India; the Mughal emperors bought his paintings at a distance rather than employing him.
• Mir Sayyid Ali was born at Tabriz in 1510 and worked on the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp before entering Humayun's service.
• Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad, recruited from Shah Tahmasp's atelier, reached Humayun about 1549 and later directed the Hamzanama under Akbar.
• Dust Muhammad, known by the epithet musavvir, had been officiating at Humayun's Kabul court since the late 1530s.

• Mistaking artistic influence for employment; Bihzad shaped Mughal painting without ever entering Mughal service.
• Choosing the least familiar name rather than checking the chronology of the most famous one.
• Assuming a Persian name implies a Mughal painter; the Safavid and Timurid courts had their own ateliers, and Humayun recruited from one of them.

Asked as a which-one-was-not item where three obscure names surround one very famous one, and the famous name is the answer.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The two Persian painters recruited from Shah Tahmasp's atelier who later directed the Hamzanama project under Akbar were

  • (a)Bihzad and Aqa Riza
  • (b)Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad
  • (c)Basawan and Daswanth
  • (d)Mansur and Bishandas

  Answer(b) Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad — invited into Humayun's service and reaching him about 1549, they carried the Persian manner into the Mughal workshop.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Mughal emperor did painting shift from illustrated manuscripts towards albums and individual portraits?

  • (a)Humayun
  • (b)Akbar
  • (c)Jahangir
  • (d)Aurangzeb

  Answer(c) Jahangir — whose personal connoisseurship also produced the celebrated studies of birds and animals by Ustad Mansur.