India.—From the end of the i6th century onwards, portraiture constituted one of the most prominent forms of artistic activity not only in Persia, but also in India. The emperor Akbar (1S42 1605) kept up a large establishment of over 1 oo painters, and employed them to illustrate his manuscripts, especially the transla tions which he had made for his use of works of Sanskrit litera ture into Persian. The emperor himself often sat for his portrait, and also ordered the portraits of the grandees of his court to be taken. Of the painters themselves very little more than their names is known, but these frequently occur, written apparently by some one of Akbar's clerical staff, not by the artists themselves, under the paintings with which they were credited. Among them, `Abdus Samad was especially noted for his skill in portraiture and he was entrusted with the training of some of the other court painters. Jahangir (1605-1628) was as generous a patron of painters as his father had been, and innumerable portraits of him and of his courtiers are in existence; in his memoirs, the emperor makes mention of several of these artists, and bestows especial praise on Abu'l tlasan, as having painted a picture of his acces sion, and on Bishandas, as a painter of portraits ; the latter was sent to Persia in the suite of an ambassador accredited to that court, in order that he might there paint the portraits of the shah and the chief nobles. Shah Jahan (1628-1659) carried on the tradition of his father and grandfather in patronizing art. The head of his staff of painters was named Muhammad Faqirullah Khan, and he was assisted by Mir Hashim, famous as a portrait painter. But the rigid orthodoxy of his son, Aurangzeb (1659
1707), caused him to be hostile to all forms of representational art, and during the long reign of this monarch the art of painting in India suffered a decline from which it never entirely recovered, and though many pictures, portraits especially, were produced, they fall short of the fine achievements of the court painters of the first five emperors of the Mughal dynasty.
Turkey.—Similarly, orthodox sentiment stood in the way of painting receiving so open and generous a patronage in Turkey, as it had once enjoyed in India, though some of the Ottoman sultans took painters into their service; the earliest of these were Persians, and it was not until the middle of the 15th century that there is any record of a painter of genuine Turkish stock, named tlusam zada San'ullah. Mohammed II. (1451-1481) took a special inter est in the work of Italian painters and medallists, and Gentile Bellini worked for him in Constantinople for a little more than a year, and trained a Turkish pupil, named Shiblizada Ahmad. Sulayman the Magnificent (1520-1566) also encouraged painters, one of whom, named Haydar, made copies of miniatures by Fran cois Clouet ; but lack of intelligent patronage checked the growth of a school of painters in Turkey, and their achievement has con sequently been more meagre and less distinguished than that of Mohammedan painters in either Persia or India.