Shah Jahan and an Elderly Courtier with a Falcon

This folio is from an album compiled for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan between about 1650 and 1658. It depicts Shah Jahan, his head surrounded by a gleaming nimbus, fingering the ‘necklace' of what must have been a favoured falcon and which sits on the gloved hand of an elderly, white-bearded courtier. Hawks, cheetahs, leopards, and saluqis (dogs that hunt by sight not scent) were also used by the Mughals for hunting.