The Virgin and Child Attended by Angels

Manohar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Virgin Mary and infant Jesus, seated on a floral carpet, are honored with an offering of a plate of fruit, visible in the foreground, consistent with the Hindu devotional practice of prasad (offering). They are attended by three angels, one bearing a gold censer and another with a Chinese-style blue-and-white porcelain bowl decorated with geese. Their feathery bodies and faces resemble those of the peris, or fairies, of Indo-Islamic painting. This hybridity of style and cultural reference is a hallmark of Mughal painting at the turn of the sixteenth century, when European influences in subject matter and technique were being absorbed by court artists such as Manohar. The artist used a tinted drawing method known as nimqalam (half-pen), to create this delicate image.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art