A Prince and his consort enjoying fireworks

Paintings like this one, large in size and rich in colors, gold embellishments, and details, are typical of the Mughal and Mughal-inspired works produced in Delhi and the provinces in the mid-eighteenth century. Many artists favored white architectural structures, balanced compositions, and crisp outlines, all of which can be seen in this painting as well as in the one to your left. Night skies appeared more frequently, often as backdrops for fireworks and celestial bodies. The dark water in the foreground pool here serves similarly as a background for gold sparklers.

The artists most fluent in this style worked at the Delhi court of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah (reigned 1719-1748). After the Persian sack of Delhi in 1739 and the death of the emperor several years later, artists were forced to seek work in the powerful and virtually independent Mughal provinces such as Avadh, in what is now Uttar Pradesh state. The distinctive gold border of this painting indicates that it belonged to an album said to have been compiled for Nana Phadnavis (died 1800), a famous chief minister of the Hindu Maratha kingdom that was based in what is now Maharashtra state.