Rajasthani Miniatures: The Welch Collection from the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

The Drawing Center's Rajasthani Miniatures: The Welch Collection from the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University included over seventy miniatures, dating from the late fifteenth to the late nineteenth centuries. Nearly all of the works presented were created for Rajputs, a princely warrior class in India traditionally associated with the kshatriya varna, were produced in the remote northwestern Indian province of Rajasthan, and depicted Hindu gods and goddesses, crowds of men and women, animals by the hundreds, a world of gardens, and perceptive descriptions of the region's varied landscape (e.g., a desert interrupted by hills, fertile riversides, and small mountains sometimes topped by splendid forts and palaces).

Although Rajputs shared religious beliefs and cultural ways, they were divided into rival clans, each with its own territories, customs, and often its own school of painting. Mewar, Kotah, Bikaner, and Kishangarh—to name a few of the Rajasthani schools represented in the exhibition—shared many characteristics, and sometimes artists, but the provenances and dates of each remain distinctly recognizable to scholars. During the five centuries covered in the exhibition, the character of Rajasthani pictures changed to reflect shifting balances of power.

Prior to the seventeenth century, Rajput pictures were typically bold and expressive, depicting gods, humans, and nature as experienced through visions. The ascendancy of the first Mughal emperor, Babur (reign 1526-30), brought new artistic currents into contact with the art of the Rajputs. Rajput artists increasingly incorporated elements of Mughal court painting, with its emphasis on individualized portraiture, and the resulting images blended the imagined with the observed—for example, rulers began to be depicted as individualized figures with true-to-life qualities rather than generalized figures identifiable only by their official attributes. Influences came from outside sources as well; when the second Mughal emperor Humayun (1508-56) returned from a period of exile at the Safavid court of Iran with several great Iranian artists, the result was a brilliant new artistic synthesis. But regardless of outside influences, each Rajput kingdom fostered its own distinctive artistic style.

In addition to the Welch collection of Rajasthani miniatures, the holdings of the Harvard University Art Museum's Department of Islamic and Later Indian Art include a rich and diverse collection of over 2,500 objects dating from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries and encompassing a broad geographical area extending from North Africa to the Indian Subcontinent. The most significant works in the collection include works on paper (watercolors, drawings, and manuscripts) from Safavid Iran, Mughal, and non-Islamic India.