The Prescient Prince: Salim's Portrait in the St Petersburg Album, by Mehreen Chida-Razvi

The goal of this lecture will be to contextualise the portrait of Salim Enthroned, in the St Petersburg Album, within the wider framework of Jahangir’s ruling ideology. Born prince Salim, the fourth Mughal emperor took the regnal title of Jahangir, the ‘World-Seizer’, on his accession in 1605. Basing my discussion on the fascinating portrait Salim Enthroned, I will make the argument that as a prince Salim was already formulating how interactions between Mughal ideology of kingship and the visual medium of painting, in particular portraiture, could be manipulated; that he was already thinking about how a visual language of power and prestige could be created and used to portray imperial ideology.