Image: Babur and his army emerge from the Khwaja Didar Fort, from a Baburnama manuscript.
Description: Painting, detached from album. Babur and his army emerge from the Khwaja Didar Fort, from a Baburnama manuscript. Babur is shown riding a fully armoured horse, emerging with his cavalry from the Khwaja Didar fort, where he wintered in 1497. A drummer rides a camel behind him and another soldier leans forward to hold a parasol over Babur's head. The broken arrows in the left foreground indicate that the battle with Shaybani Khan the Uzbek has already begun. The fort is ringed with red brick walls and crenellated battlements. Inside a tomb with a vaulted roof, various buildings, pavilions and canopies are visible. This is the left-hand page of a double-page composition of which the right hand page represents Shaybani Khan and Uzbeks being driven toward Samarkand (also owned by the British Museum since 1921). The first Mughal emperor, Babur, was born in the Ferghana valley of Central Asia and was descended from one line of the Mongols. He and his allies tried several times to take control of Samarkand, but each effort was eventually rebuffed by the Uzbeks, led by Shaybani Khan. Eventually, seeking a path of less resistance, Babur conquered Northern India. This page is one half of a double-page composition of which the British Museum has owned the other half since 1921. The depicted battle is described in the Baburnama (A.S. Beveridge, trans., 'The Babur-nama in English' (London 1969), pp. 73-74; W. Thackston, trans., 'The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor' (New York 1996), p. 81.
Title: Babur and his army emerge from the Khwaja Didar Fort, from a Baburnama manuscript.
Credit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=468728&partid=1&searchText=mughal&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&images=on&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx¤tPage=98
Author: Drawn by Basáwan Painted by Dharm Dás
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No
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