Aqa Riza (painter to Jahangir)

Jahangir writes in his memoirs that Aqa Riza "of Herat" (or Merv) joined his service when he was a prince. Milo Cleveland Beach takes two inscriptions by his sons calling Abu'l Hasan "al-Mashhadi" as making the family's Mashhad origin unquestionable. ² He was in India by the birth of his son Abu'l Hasan in 1588–89, and his earliest known works are two almost purely Iranian pages in the Gulshan Album. ²

Aqa Riza was the major artist at Prince Salim's court at Allahabad (1600–1604), during the prince's rebellion, so his Iranian style deeply shaped the young Jahangir's taste. ^{1 3} He designed the Khusrau Bagh at Allahabad, where Salim's wife Shah Begam was buried in 1604. ^{3 4} On a Portrait of a Courtier of about 1595 he calls himself "the devoted disciple", beneath the name "Sultan Salim" in gold. ⁴

Beach describes him as a controlled, precise painter of balanced, highly decorative compositions who remained conservative and indebted to his Iranian training: his figures seldom gain real individuality, and his line stays expressively independent of what it describes. Signed margins of 1599 in the Gulshan Album prove he was copying European prints, the source of the new shading. ¹ His major paintings are in the British Library Anwar-i-Suhaili of 1604–10. ^{1 4} His direct influence is not found after about 1605. ^{5 4}