Shah Jahan is a 1658 by Rembrandt, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This is a drawing of a man in a turban and rich robes, holding a flower. Rembrandt never saw Shah Jahan in person. He copied the face from a tiny Indian painting that had made its way to Holland. Instead of copying every jewel and fold, he used quick, loose lines to make the ruler feel real and alive. Look up how Rembrandt van Rijn used light and shadow to shape faces—it’s called chiaroscuro.
Rembrandt’s drawing portrays Shah Jahan, the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1628-58. It is one of twenty-three drawings that Rembrandt made after Indian miniatures, which he had very likely studied in an album then in Holland. By the 18th century, the album had been dismantled, and the model for this drawing now resides at the Schloss Schönbrunn, Vienna. Rembrandt imposed his characteristic realist tendencies on a more detailed, formal, and stylized model, bringing the shah to life with especially fine pen strokes on the face and shoes mixed with evanescent brown ink washes around the figure…
The Mughal ruler portrayed in this drawing carries a fly swatter in his left hand.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman.
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