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    ARTICLE

    Ghulam Ali Khan

    Map Academy

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    The Qutub Minar; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; 29 x 21.5 cm; Wikimedia Commons

    Painting in the years 1817–52 while primarily based in what is now New Delhi, Ghulam Ali Khan is best known for his work in the Company School. His career traces a period of transformation of painting in North India, as Khan adapted his style for patrons varying from Mughal emperors in his early years to the officers of the East India Company from the mid-point of his career.

    From 1817 onwards, Khan was a painter in the courts of the Mughal emperors Akbar II and Bahadur Shah II, following which he worked intermittently for the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, until 1852. As the Mughal court’s political influence and financial resources dwindled, he maintained simultaneous employment at the regional courts of Alwar and Jhajjar, while also working on commissions by officers of the East India Company such as William and James Fraser and James Skinner. By the 1830s, William Fraser was his principal patron, for whom he worked on the Fraser Album.

    Khan came from a family of court painters. His uncle Ghulam Murtaza Khan was a painter in the court of Akbar II and was known to render his figures with controlled naturalism. Faiz Ali Khan, his brother, worked on architectural views for Thomas Metcalfe, and another relative, Mazhar Ali Khan, was the principal architectural painter commissioned by Metcalfe for the Delhi Book.

    Six recruits, folio from the Fraser Album; Family of Ghulam Ali Khan, Company school, Delhi or Haryana, India; 1815–16; Watercolour, ink and gold on Whatman paper; 25.3 x 39.4 cm; National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
    Eight men in Indian and Burmese costume; Circle of Ghulam ‘Ali Khan, Company school, Delhi, India; 19th century; Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper; 25.4 x 39.4 cm; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

    Khan’s work travelled between different conventions and modes — portraiture, architecture, topography, genre scenes and manuscript illustration. His 1817 painting of the diwan-e-khas (Hall of Special Audience) of the Red Fort established a trend towards topographical and architectural subjects in the Mughal idiom. He was the first Mughal artist to move out of the conventions of miniature painting and towards a picturesque mode. This is evident in his architectural views, such as the exterior of the Red Fort painted in 1822. At the court of Maharao Raja Binne Singh of Alwar, he made paintings for the illustrated manuscript of Gulistan by Sa’di. While working on the Fraser Album, he developed a unique Indo-European pictorial vocabulary. In his work for Skinner, his unique style is rendered in great detail and proportion with a series of large watercolour and gouache paintings that depict Skinner’s military regiment, life on his estate and sweeping views of his grounds.

    View of the Red Fort in Delhi with the Shah Burj, the Saman Burj and Asad Burj from the Yamuna river; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; 21.5 x 29 cm; Wikimedia Commons
    The Sunehri Masjid (Golden Mosque) of Roshan ud-Dawla at Chandni Chowk; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; 21.5 x 29 cm; Wikimedia Commons
    The Peacock Throne in the Diwan-i Khas of the Red Fort; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; 21.5 x 29 cm; Wikimedia Commons
    The interior of the Diwan-i Khas and the Khas Mahal in the Red Fort; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; Wikimedia Commons
    The Chhatta Chowk within the Lahore Gate at Red Fort in Delhi; Ghulam Ali Khan; 1852–54; Watercolour and gold on paper; 21.5 x 29 cm; Wikimedia Commons

    Khan’s multifaceted career elucidates the shifting tides of painting with the transformation of political life in the subcontinent as well as the newly emergent aesthetic that was mediated by it.

     
    Bibliography

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