Iltifat Khan

Iltifat Khan
Study of Iltifat Khan, c. 1640, anonymous, Metropolitan Museum of Art.[a][2]
BornMurad Mirza
HouseSafavid dynasty
FatherRustam Mirza Safavi

Murad Khan, also Sultan Murad Mirza Iltifat Khan and Mirza Mukarram Khan Safavi, often simply Iltifat Khan, was a son of Rustam Mirza Safavi, a noble of Safavid ancestry at the court of the Mughal Empire. Rustam Mirza Safavi, at the age of sixteen, had married a noblewoman from the prominent Shaykhavand tribe in 1581.[3]

Murad Khan received the title of "Iltifat Khan" from the Mughal Emperor Jahangir.[4] He then received the title of "Mukarram Khan" in the 27th year of the reign of Shah Jahan, circa 1655.[4] Iltifat Khan is said to have been well-connected at the Mughal court, through his marriage and the marriages of his daughters.[5] He married the daughter of the Mughal notable 'Abdur-Rahim Khan-i Khanan.[4]

His fine, realistic, portrait in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the result of Akbar's insistence on the creation of life-like depictions, in contradiction with the precepts of religious orthodoxy.[5]

Iltifat Khan took really retirement and died in Patna in 1657,[5] or in 1669.[4]

Another portrait of Iltafat Khan, in Shah Ismail Safavi and Six of His Descendants. Calligraphy signed Shah Qasim. Mughal India, circa 1650-60

Notes

  1. ^ The drawing was probably made in preparations for a larger durbar scene in which the subject would be standing in a court assembly looking upward at the emperor (as suggested by his raised gaze.) A Devanagari inscription above identifies the subject and indicates that the drawing was in a Rajput collection for some time in history.[1]

References

  1. ^ Guy & Haidar 2024, p. 13.
  2. ^ "Iltifat Khan". Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  3. ^ Hejazi 2002, p. 91.
  4. ^ a b c d Crill & Jariwala 2010, p. 100.
  5. ^ a b c Guy & Haidar 2024, p. 12.

Bibliography

  • Crill, Rosemary; Jariwala, Kapil (2010). The Indian Portrait, 1560-1860. Mapin Publishing Pvt Ltd. ISBN 978-81-89995-37-9.
  • Guy, John; Haidar, Navina Najat (2024). Indian Skies: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. OCLC 1427175369.
  • Hejazi, Banafsheh (2002). ضعیفه: بررسی جایگاه زن ایرانی در عصر صفوی [The Weak Sex: A Study Concerning the Place of Iranian Woman in the Age of the Safavids] (in Persian). Tehran: Qasideh-sara. ISBN 9789649376912. OCLC 1311582538.