Manohar Das (born in 1568), was a highly skilled and sought-after artist of successive Mughal ateliers, reaching artistic maturity in his late 20s.

His father Basawan was already revered under the Mughal Emperor Akbar and was regarded as one of his most influential painters. While nepotism might have brought Manohar to Akbar’s atelier, his skill kept him there. It was common for Mughal painters to follow their fathers to court, but what gives testament to Manohar’s prowess is that, in the Akbarnama alone, he contributed 14 (if not more) of the 170 illustrations present.

Like his father, Manohar was also employed early on in studying the European manuscripts and paintings that had been given to Akbar by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, in their mission to the Mughal court at Fatehpur Sikri in 1580. Philip I of the Iberian Union was looking to broaden his empire. The Portuguese had already taken control of Goa in 1510 and much farther west at Hormuz in 1507. When Akbar took over Gujarat in 1573, it brought the two kingdoms closer to each other.

While the most prolific of the artists that studied European styles remains Kesu Das, Manohar’s Christian imagery provides an interesting footnote in the greater context of Mughal miniature painting.

The Christian imagery in a Mughal-era artist’s work serves as a fascinating footnote in the greater context of Mughal miniature painting

When Prince Salim (later Jahangir) had fallen out of favour with Akbar, who was then considering his grandson Khusrau — Jahangir’s eldest son — as the next emperor, Jahangir left his father’s court in rage in 1600 and settled in Allahabad for a period of five years, taking artists, including Manohar, from Akbar’s Agra atelier with him.

However, during the move, Manohar was still working on projects that had begun under Akbar. The Dastaan-i-Masih [Life of Christ] had been translated under Akbar, but was illustrated at Allahabad. As John Seyller, in his entry on Manohar in Masters of Indian Painting I: 1100—1650, notes about Manohar’s Flagellation of Christ, “…the sensitive contour modelling of Christ’s body, the well-articulated faces and hands, the occasional passages of well-modelled cloth, and the zigzagging river bank and curving horizon of the deep landscape.”

Jahangir’s time at Allahabad might also have led to the Mughal artists having lesser access to European imagery and Europeans themselves, creating an independent style from Basawan and Kesu. Further, Jahangir had taken the Herat-trained Aqa Reza with him as a senior artist, which further informs the Flagellation of Christ.

Seyller also suggests that the move indicates a general drop in quality of materials while this atelier was stationed at Allahabad. While Jahangir was feuding against his father and issuing coins and edicts to establish himself as emperor, his attention towards his artists was diminishing.

Just before he moved to Allahabad, Manohar produced a stunning image titled Madonna and Child with a White Cat, which has Mary nursing Jesus on what appears to be a Persian carpet. What makes it even more interesting is the calm presence of the domestic animal, making it more at home as an image from South Asia.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the work Madonna and Child in a Domestic Interior is signed by Manohar and is part of Jahangir’s Muraqqa-i-Gulshan [The Gulshan Album], and the presence of a cat once again signals South Asian tendencies. Work on the album began in 1599 and it took a decade to complete, and the quality suggests that Manohar might have produced it in Allahabad.

Once Jahangir became the Mughal sovereign after his relationship with his father was repaired, the riches of his court noted a high degree of artistic excellence produced by his atelier, including by Manohar. In Tobias and the Angel (1610), Manohar studied European engravings and illustrations again. Akbar and Jahangir’s Mughal courts were bringing together styles of Punjab, Sindh, Rajasthan and Gujarat with Iberian and Italian tendencies.

Miniature paintings were not the only surface where Christian iconography appeared for the Mughals. In a 1993 paper by the art historian Ilay Cooper, published on the artwork of the Sehdara Pavillion of the Lahore Fort, images of St Gregory, St Anthony and St Dorothy were seen during conservation work, attributed to Manohar’s protégé Abu’l-Hasan.

The writer is the Managing Editor at Folio Books. He can be reached at saeedhusain72@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 11th, 2026

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