Daulat

Daulat, (flourished 16th–17th century, India), an important Mughal painter who worked during the reigns of both the emperors Akbar and Jahāngīr and painted under Shah Jahān as well.

Born into the imperial service, presumably the son of a painter, Daulat was an unusually skilled portraitist. He is responsible for recording his own likeness and the portraits of several other Mughal artists on the margins of an album now in the Royal Library of the Golestān Palace, Tehrān. His portrait also appears along with that of the scribe ʿAbd al-Raḥīm in the Dyson Perrins copy of the Khamseh Neẓāmī of 1596, now in the British Museum, an honour paid the two by the emperor Jahāngīr. Splendid paintings were executed by him in the Akbar-nāmeh (“History of Akbar”; in the Chester Beatty Collection) and the Bābur-nāmeh (“Memoirs of Bābur”; in the National Museum of India). He was also skillful in gold illumination, and many examples of his work can be seen in the albums assembled for Jahāngīr.