Framed Indian Folk Art of Mughal Empress Nur Jahan. Depicted holding a rose and sitting on a throne. 

Frame: 15 1/4 x 11 in.

Sight: 13 3/4 x 9 1/2 in.

#2565. 

Nur Jahan was born in 1577 in Kandahar into a family of Persian nobility, eventually becoming the twentieth wife and the chief consort of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. She is the most commonly portrayed Indian empress in folk paintings, considered one of the strongest female rulers in the history of the Deccan Plateau. After the death of her first husband in 1607 she married Jahangir in 1611, but the country began to face a crisis as he abnegated responsibilities in favor of hunting, alcohol, and opium. Using the royal seal with his permission, she instigated numerous reforms in coinage, sexual equality, and the textile industry, becoming known as a patron of the arts and a shrewd political strategist with a short temper. Eventually dethroned in 1628 by her son-in-law after the death of Jahangir, she remained a beloved figure to the Mughal people, with legends about her slaying tigers and riding into battle atop an elephant likely a mixture of fact and fiction. Confined to house arrest, she spent the remainder of her life in Lahore overseeing the completion of her father’s mausoleum in Agra, the design of which inspired the Taj Mahal, built by her usurper Shah Jahan. She died in 1645 and was laid to rest in a tomb she built for herself. In nearly all images of her, she is seen holding a rose, alluding to her alleged invention of the rosewater bath to clean and purify the sick and infirmed.