Notes on Farrukh Beg

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• Farrukh Beg was a Mongol artist who was in Khorasan until 1585 with artists who had been in the atelier of Ibrahim Mirza in Khorasan . He spent 1585 to 1600 at the the atelier of Akbar. Farrukh Beg was downsized in 1600 in the same design shift in which Miskin fell out of favor. He was in the Deccan until 1608 and this shows the style he used when he returned to the court of Jahangir in Mughal India. While the realistic detail in Mughal Shrub Carpets may derive from European botanicals the rows of clumps of flowers appears to have entered the Mughal design repertoire from the work of Farrukh Beg upon his return from the Deccan.
• It is commonly written that Farrukh Beg was a Persian born artist but I have decided that that is unlikely. Farrukh is a very talented artist and there is no other Farrukh who was of similar stature at the court of Akbar. So when we look at Abu'l Fazl list of the most important artist I believe that Farrukh Beg is the Farrukh the Qalmaq listed ninth. A Qalmaq or Kalmuck as it is often written refers to a member of the Oirat tribe. The Oirat were a Mongol tribe that in 1453 assassinated the Chingizi Mongol Khan Toqtoa-buqa and became vassals of China. An extremely important and powerful tribal nation- state the Oirat held the land from the upper Yenisi to the valley of the Ili. For a discussion of the Oirat in this period see Rene Grousset's The Empire of the Steppes,   p. 507 - 509.
• JVS Wilkinson referes to Farruk Beg as "the Khalmuq Painter" In describing how Jahangir rewarded him with 2000 Rupees. Wilkinson, INDIAN ART. Page 41.
• Eternal beauty of the painted gardens
• Ibrahim
• The Turkmen Prisoner- 1590 - 1600 Signed by Farrukh Beg.

Ibrahim Adil Shah
This portrait was done for a book for Emperor Jahangir. A note mentions: "Ibrahim Adil Khan of Deccan, Prince of Bijapur, who through his knowledge of music brought fame to Deccan and enlightment to his people." It was painted live in 1610 by Farrukh Beg. http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ibrahim.html

• Farrukh Beg
  (b c. 1547; d after 1615). Persian painter, active in India. He went to India at the age of 39. His year of birth, AH 954–5 (AD 1547–8), has been calculated from an inscribed painting, executed when he was 70 in AH 1024. His ethnic origin has been given by Abu’l Fazl as Qalmaq and elsewhere as Qaqshali (a misreading of Qashqa’i?). He evidently received his training in Khurasan, probably from artists associated with the production of a manuscript of Jami’s Haft awrang (‘Seven thrones’; Washington, DC, Freer) for Prince Ibrahim Mirza, governor of Mashhad 1564–77. His earliest surviving work comprises four miniatures in a simplified Khurasani style in a manuscript of Amir Khusraw’s Khamsa (‘Five poems’; Cambridge, King’s Coll.) dated AH 978–9 (AD 1571–2) at Herat. This manuscript evidently travelled to India because the attributions include the title Nadir al-`Asri (‘wonder of the age’) bestowed on him by the Mughal emperor Jahangir (reg 1605–27) before AH 1024 (AD 1615). Farrukh Beg went to Kabul and entered the service of Muhammad Hakim, half-brother to the Mughal emperor Akbar (reg 1556–1605). On 13 March 1580 he negotiated the sale, to Akbar’s library, of a manuscript, recently illustrated with two miniatures in Khurasani style, possibly by him. After the death of his patron in July 1585 he travelled with Muhammad Hakim’s son and others to the court at Rawalpindi and entered Akbar’s service. http://www.artnet.com/library/02/0276/T027606.asp