Artwork story
About "Bahram Gur Sees a Herd of Deer Mesmerized by Dilaram' s Music", Folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi
The artist and artwork
This 1597–98 folio from the Khamsa of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi is attributed to Miskin, an artist active at Akbar's Mughal court from about 1570 to 1604. Miskin was renowned for animal painting. Here ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper turn a literary episode into a layered landscape: the king Bahram Gur and the musician Dilaram encounter a herd of deer arrested by sound. Gilded margins place that vivid scene inside one of Akbar's most sumptuous personal manuscripts.
The world around it
The page was made near the end of Akbar's reign, when his court atelier brought Persian artists, Indian Muslims, and Hindu painters together at Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore. That collaboration produced a distinct Mughal style while the emperor commissioned histories, epics, translations, and poetry on an extraordinary scale. Amir Khusrau had written his Khamsa in response to the earlier Persian poet Nizami, keeping the five-part structure but changing stories and rooting them more firmly in India. The folio therefore joins a centuries-old Persian literary conversation to the people, animals, and terrain of late-sixteenth-century Mughal India.
A detail to notice
Dilaram's music is represented through its effect rather than through any visible notation. Amir Khusrau's story gives her the power to make animals sleep or awaken, and the painted herd appears mesmerized while Bahram Gur watches. That suspension is especially suited to Miskin: an artist celebrated for the force of animals in combat here imagines animals made still by listening. The contrast changes a royal hunting subject into a demonstration of artistic power. A weapon can stop one animal, but Dilaram's performance holds an entire herd. The deer's attentive bodies make an invisible sound legible, so music, not the king, controls the action and becomes the true subject of the page.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is folio from an illustrated manuscript made in Main support: ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper; Margins: gold on dyed paper and held in the Islamic Art department.
Recorded dimensions include H. 9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm); W. 5 15/16 in. (15.1 cm).
Subject terms include Men, Women, Harps, Deer, Horses, and Rabbits. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is Gift of Alexander Smith Cochran, 1913.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
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