This painting, from an album complied for Shuja al-Dawla, a nawab of Oudh, was produced at the end of the period of Mughal greatness: Mughal power and wealth and hence artistic patronage and production peaked during the reigns of Akbar (r.1556-1605), Jahangir (r.1605-27), Shah Jahan (r.1628-57), and Awrangzib (r.1658-1707). Then, in 1739, the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah sacked Delhi, carrying back to Iran the riches of the Mughals – their library, treasury and even the fabled Peacock Throne. More than anything, this was a devastating psychological blow from which the Mughals never recovered.
Source: p632, Chronicle of the World. Editor: Jerome Burne. Held by the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.