"Art of Mughal India" on view at the Sackler Gallery starting Aug. 21, presents an exhibition of some 30 works of art, including brilliantly colored, intricately detailed manuscript paintings and luxury objects in jade and lacquered wood that offer a glimpse into the conceptually creative and technically innovative tradition of Mughal painting and its lasting impact on the courts of Rajput India and Safavid Iran.

In the early 16th century, the conquest of northern India by Babur (reigned 1526–1530) ushered in one of the most remarkable political, cultural and artistic periods in the history of the subcontinent. Babur was a direct descendent of the Mongol conqueror Ghenghiz Khan (d. 1227), and the Turkic warlord Timur, who had established the Timurid dynasty in Iran and Central Asia (1370–1501). Babur and his successors were known as the "Mughals," a derivation of the word "Mongol," and ruled over India until 1858. The wealth and opulence of their courts so impressed foreign visitors that the term "mogul" entered the English language as a synonym for power and wealth. Like their Timurid ancestors, the Mughals expressed deep interest in the arts of the book, but it was only after Akbar (reigned 1556–1605) succeeded in consolidating Mughal power in north India that a distinct artistic tradition began to emerge. With the help of Persian painters, who migrated to India at the invitation of Akbar's father, the second Mughal ruler Humayun (d. 1555), early Mughal painting synthesized the refinement of Persian painting and the dynamism of Hindu compositions with Western naturalism. Akbar's wide-ranging interests encouraged the extensive production of illustrated Hindu and Muslim epics, historical narratives and portraiture.

Akbar's son Jahangir (reigned 1605–1627) was more interested in highly finished individual compositions and portrait studies, drawing on both Persian pictorial ideals and European naturalism. During the reign of his successor, Shah Jahan (1628–1657), the patron of the Taj Mahal, Mughal fascination with portraiture reached its zenith. The relative naturalism of earlier Mughal painting gave way to highly formal portraits, transforming figures into iconic images of power and grandeur as is evident in a series of lavishly produced royal albums.

By the 17th-century, the Mughal pictorial idiom also played a formative role in the development of painting at the Rajput courts of northern India as members of the Hindu nobility, who had been largely integrated into the empire through marriage alliances, began to employ Mughal painters and commission works of art that echoed Mughal artistic taste. In Iran too, 17th century artists looked to India for new sources of pictorial inspiration, resulting in a distinct, hybrid style of painting. Examples of Mughal, Rajput, and Safavid works of art on view include:

• "Shamsa" (Sunburst) one of the few surviving works directly associated with the patronage of Humayun
• Two paintings from Akbar's reign, including "Prince Resting During a Hunt," showing the synthesis of Persian and Western artistic traditions
• An exquisite double-page painting of "Timur on the Battlefield" from the Gulshan Album-assembled for Jahangir in the 17th century
• Several folios from a manuscript known as the Late Shah Jahan Album—another remarkable collection of painting from the mid-17th century. Although the manuscript has been dismantled-folios identifiable by their distinct borders reveal items of special note, such as:
* A portrait of Humayun seated in a landscape; the painting is signed in tiny characters on the base of the tree trunk by Payag, one of the leading painters of Shah Jahan's court, who is particularly known for his interest in European illusionist effects

* One of the album's elaborately designed calligraphic folios written in the "nast'aliq" script, which was reserved after the late 14th century for copying poetry,and set in lavishly painted flower-strewn margins

* A rare and tender portrait of a child-Shah-Shuja, the younger brother of Dara-Shikuh and the second son of Shah-Jahan

* A drawing by the Safavid artist, Shaykh Abbasi—the artist's earliest extant dated work—of a young woman dressed in Indian attire in a landscape showing a blending of Persian pictorial conventions with Indian pictorial ideals

* A Rajput equestrian painting by a master of the Jaipur atelier, Sahiba Ram

The Freer Gallery of Art (12th Street and Independence Avenue S.W.) and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (1050 Independence Ave. S.W.) together form the national museum of Asian art for the United States. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Dec. 25 and admission is free. The galleries are located near the Smithsonian Metrorail station on the Blue and Orange lines. For more information, the public may call (202) 633-1000 or TTY (202) 357-1729, or visit the special, exhibition-related section of the galleries' Web site at www.asia.si.edu.