A marbled picture of Rustam catching Rakhsh
1650
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1650
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a wild horse rearing up while a young man grabs its halter. A shepherd watches from a hill, and a leopard pins down a deer in the background. This painting is made with swirled, marbled colors—like the inside of a geode—pressed onto every leaf, feather, and fold of fabric. No one else used the technique this much. The scene comes from a Persian epic, but the artist worked in southern India, blending two worlds. To see more paintings that mix cultures this way, look up subject: india, bijapur, deccan.
