Negotiating Religion in Mughal Painting. Interpretations and Translations of Christian Marian Images

The Mughal Emperor Akbar and his court are known for a tolerant religious policy and a general openness to the various religions of the empire. Akbar and his son and successor, Jahangir, moreover cultivated an intense interest in European art, especially religious images. The article argues that, in engaging with European Christian art, the painters of the Mughal court reflected on its significance as a medium of religious content and critically implemented these reflections in their own works. The Mughal artists’ receptions and reinterpretations of the European Christian pictorial tradition thus represent a transreligious pictorial discourse, one that paralleled the religious debates held at the court