Emperor Jahangir Embraces Shah Abbas

This painting depicts an encounter that never took place. The Mughal emperor Jahangir, towering and richly dressed, holds the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas in a dominant embrace, while Abbas's thin arms can barely reach around him. An inscribed couplet, written by Jahangir himself, claims that Abbas visited him in a dream, placing the scene firmly in the realm of imagination. Its purpose was to assert the emperor's superiority at a time of rivalry over the disputed region of Qandahar.

The symbolism is dense. Both rulers share a golden nimbus, a solar disc resting on a crescent moon and held by two cherubs, which evokes farr, the divine radiance believed to mark worthy kings. Beneath them sits a globe: Jahangir stands on a lion and Abbas on a lamb, each animal placed over its ruler's territory. Yet the lion also occupies the contested border zones and seems to nudge the lamb toward Iran, reflecting the emperor's unease about Persian incursions.

Painter

Abu al-Hasan

Date

1618

Medium

gold, paper, ink, watercolor paint

Dimensions

24 × 15 cm

Museum

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Genre

allegory

Depicts

Abbas the Great, Jahangir I

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