Note 46 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

On this day Abū-l-Ḥasan,46 the painter, who has been honoured with the title of Nādiru-z-zamān, drew the picture of my accession as the frontispiece to the Jahāngīr-nāma, and brought it to me. As it was worthy of all praise, he received endless favours. His work was perfect, and his picture is one of the chefs d’œuvre of the age. At the present time he has no rival or equal. If at this day the masters ʿAbdu-l-Ḥayy and Bihzād were alive, they would have done him justice. His father, Āqā Riẓāʾī, of Herat,47 at the time when I was Prince, joined my service. He (Abū-l-Ḥasan) was a k͟hānazād of my Court. There is, however, no comparison between his work and that of his father (i.e., he is far better than his father). One cannot put them into the same category. My connection was based on my having reared him. From his earliest years up to the present time I have always looked after him, till his art has arrived at this rank. Truly he has become Nādira-i-zamān (“the wonder of the age”). Also, Ustād Manṣūr48 has become such a master in painting that he has the title of Nādiru-l-ʿAṣr, and in the art of drawing is unique in his generation. In the time of my father’s reign and my own these two have had no third. As regards myself, my liking for painting and my practice in judging it have arrived at such a point that when any work is brought before me, either of deceased artists or of those of the present day, without the names being told me, I say on the spur of the moment that it is the work of such and such a man. And if there be a picture containing many portraits, and each face be the work of a different master, I can discover which face is the work of each of them. If any other person has put in the eye and eyebrow of a face, I can perceive whose work the original face is, and who has painted the eye and eyebrows.