Husain Ali Khan Entertaining His Brothers (The Sayyid Brothers)
1716
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1716
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Husain Ali Khan Entertaining His Brothers (The Sayyid Brothers) is a 1716 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see three men in white robes on a marble terrace, one smoking a hookah while two servants stand behind them. This painting shows the Sayyid brothers, powerful kingmakers who controlled the Mughal throne in the early 1700s. The servants’ nervous glance hints at the danger of their rule. The flat gray sky feels like a quiet warning—rare in Indian art of this time. To see more work like this, look up mughal dynasty (1526-1756).
The shrewd imperial oligarch smoking the hookah and his brothers ran the Mughal government after the death of Emperor Alamgir in 1707 until the rise of Emperor Muhammad Shah in 1719. They were ruthless, self-serving kingmakers who caused the assassinations and accessions of six different members of the royal family to the Mughal throne in Delhi. The two attendants behind him exchange a worried glance, and the rare use of a flat gray sky behind the white marble terrace suggests the artist’s mood about the future strength and prosperity of the empire.
The man shown smoking a hookah is the Mughal imperial ruler.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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