Farrukh Beg, also known as Farrukh Husayn, was a Persian miniature painter, who spent a bulk of his career in Safavid Iran and Mughal India, praised by Mughal Emperor Jahangir as “unrivaled in the age.”
Farrukh Beg was credited with painting a plethora of Persian and Mughal paintings, a handful of which survive today. His work showed his distinct training in Persian manuscript painting, which later on evolved to include more experimental techniques such as atmospheric perspective and modeling. Beg had produced miniature paintings under the patronage of five known rulers in West Asia and South Asia: Ibrahim Mirza of Safavid Mashhad, Mirza Muhammad Hakim of Kabul, Akbar in Mughal India and later his son Jahangir, and Ibrahim Adil Shah II of the Sultanate of Bijapur. His distinct style came to be revered by his contemporaries and patrons, due to a distinct homogeneity, evolving as a result of his Persian training and experiences in cosmopolitan Mughal courts. His life was later mired in mystery due to his sudden hiatus from the Mughal court sometime after 1595, rejoining the Mughal atelier around 1609.