Untitled
1621
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1621
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Untitled is a 1621 paint by Mansur, a Baroque work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
Mansur painted a zebra in 1621. The animal stands straight, its black and white stripes sharp against a plain background. The artist made a tiny note in Persian on the top left, saying the zebra came from Ethiopia. This zebra wasn’t just any zebra. The Mughal emperor Jahangir got it as a gift, then asked Mansur to paint it. Artists rarely painted zebras back then, so this is special. See more like this at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The painting depicts a Burchell's zebra, an animal presented to Mughal emperor Jahangir in March 1621 during Nowruz festivities, recorded in his memoirs as arriving via Turks from Ethiopia. Jahangir's Persian inscription on the work attributes the likeness to Mansur, titled "Wonder of the Age," and dates it to the year 1620–21. The artwork later entered the collection of Jahangir's son, Shah Jahan, who added ornate borders and illuminated calligraphy to the folio. It is part of the Minto Album, a group of dispersed folios now held between the V&A and the Chester Beatty Library.
Read the full account in the museum source.
This 17th-century artist painted delicate studies of birds and flowers, often on small, intricately bordered pages.
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