Abd al-Samad

The miniature Prince of the House of Timur (around 1550–1555; watercolor and gold on cotton) is attributed to Abd as-Samad. It is one of the oldest preserved paintings from the Mughal period.

Khwaja Abd as-Samad (* first half of the 16th century in Shiraz , † around 1595 in Delhi or Lahore ) was a Persian - Indian miniature painter , calligrapher and coin designer. Together with Mir Sayyid Ali he is considered to be the founder of the north Indian Mughal school, which is derived from the Persian tradition of miniature painting.

Abd as-Samad was the son of a Persian minister. He first worked as a painter and calligrapher for Shah Tahmasp I at his court in Tabriz . In 1544/45 he entered the service of the Mughal emperor Humayun , who was expelled from India and followed to Kabul in 1549 . There he taught painting to Humayun and his son Akbar I. In 1555, Abd as-Samad accompanied his master, together with the painter Mir Sayyid Ali, who also came from Persia, on his return to India, where he was honored. Between 1567 and 1582 he and Mir Sayyid Ali led the painting school of over 50 artists at Akbar's imperial court. Among his students were the painters Basawan and Daswanth, who were formative for the later Akbar period . In 1576 he was appointed head of the mint of Fatehpur Sikri , for which he designed various coin designs, and in 1586 he was appointed Diwan (Minister of Finance) of Multan Province. Already under Humayun († 1556) he had received the honorary title Shirin Qalam ("sweet feather").

Abd as-Samad's painting style remained for a long time part of the Safavid school of Tabriz, but was also increasingly subject to Indian influences, which were expressed above all in the choice of motifs and the stronger characterization of the figures represented. He gave up the vertical perspective, initially adopted from Persian models, in favor of a more realistic depiction in a gentlemanly perspective . The background landscapes of his pictures, however, clearly have a Persian character. Likewise, people and animals based on the Persian model are still depicted in a highly idealized manner. Among the most important works attributed to Abd as-Samad are the more than 1400 large-format, unsigned miniatures of the Hamzanama ( Dastan-e Amir Hamza "Stories of Amir Hamza"), a heroic novel, which he illustrated on behalf of Akbar together with Mir Sayyid Ali directed. Among his numerous portraits, the miniature Prince of the House of Timur stands out, which places the Mughal dynasty in the tradition of the Timurids . In general, however, the assignment of individual paintings to Abd as-Samad is not infrequently controversial, since in the early days of Mughal painting often several artists worked on one work and many works were unsigned.

source

• Günter Meißner (abbreviation): General artist lexicon (Volume 1: A - Alanson). KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-598-22741-8 .