Watson Collection of Indian Miniatures at the Elvehjem Museum of Art

Introducing a rich historical and religious context, Gautama V. Vajracharya offers an original, nuanced study of the iconography of Indian miniature paintings. Providing an extended analysis of 1.29 art works catalogued in this book, he explicates the gradual development and interrelationship of two styles of Indie miniature painting from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: one commissioned by the Muslim Mughal rulers and the other by Hindu Rajput princes. He shows that belief systems reflected in ancient Indian art continued to be expressed, whether consciously or not, in later Indian miniature paintings and in other artistic forms well into the nineteenth century.