.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp)
One of the most charming images in this exhibition about the Mughals is a watercolour of great delicacy, rather like a picture from a late medieval Book of Hours, showing a pilgrim on a journey with his staff and cloak, a winding road at his back with peasants in the field, a village in the distance and a pair of antelopes skipping off the page.
Oddly, there’s a turbaned semi-naked figure lying at his feet, looking as if he’s flying along the ground. The pilgrim is on his way to Mecca and the figure is an Indian Brahmin on his own pilgrimage, only he is crawling rather than walking, an act of humility that the Muslim takes to heart.
