We love the Indian miniatures we’ve been seeing in Gallery 227 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so when we saw the gallery now had The Book of War: The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Mughal Razmnama Folios, we had to pay a visit. The 25 book pages on display are elaborately illustrated folios are from a single Mughal manuscript, the Razmnama (literally, “Book of War”), dated to 1598–99.
While we were there, PMA Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art Darielle Mason showed up and explained to us (and to you too if you watch this episode) just what we were looking at.
The exhibit shows a cultural exchange in action between Persians and Indians, Muslims and Hindus. For the first time since 1923, all 25 of the Free Library’s pages are being shown together, up through Dec. 9.
Speaking of mughals, our favorite mughal of video David Kessler captures it all in one fell swoop. Here’s a link to his popular Shadow World videos. And here’s a link to all the Look! It’s Libby and Roberta episodes.
