# Princess and attendant in trompe l’oeil window

**Aqil Khan** (Indian, active mid-1700s)  
c. 1765  
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper  
Image: 12.5 x 7.8 cm (4 15/16 x 3 1/16 in.); Overall: 44 x 31.6 cm (17 5/16 x 12 7/16 in.)

Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1955.297. [The museum's record](https://clevelandart.org/art/1955.297).

## About this work

A golden window shade has been rolled up to reveal a princess seated on a terrace. The carpet draped over the sill echoes that of the balcony rail where royals would show themselves to the public. Rather than taking the view of an outsider, the viewer looks from inside the palace out to the women and the wooded landscape beyond. During the mid-1600s, the Mughal court introduced a preference for the patterns on carpets and textiles: flowering plants on a plain ground. This influential fashion derived from their appreciation of European botanical studies that merchants and diplomats brought to India.

_Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art._

Aqil Khan painted this in about 1765. It is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

### How it was made

- **Opaque watercolour.** Watercolour made opaque with white or chalk and laid in flat, even layers. Persian and Indian painters ground their colours from minerals, applied them with the finest brushes and burnished the finished page.
- **Tempera.** Pigment bound with egg yolk. It dries in minutes and can’t be blended wet, so painters built up form with fine, hatched strokes. It was Europe’s main panel technique before oil.
- **Ink on paper.** Ink made from soot and animal glue, ground with water on an inkstone. A single brush can give a hair-fine line or a broad wash, and nothing can be corrected.

### [Aqil Khan](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/aqil-khan)

Indian, active mid-1700s

## Facts

- Type: Painting
- Culture: Mughal India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow
- Real size: about 17 × 12 in (44 × 32 cm). The 12 × 16 in print is close to life size.
- Century: 18th century
- Colour: brown
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/606.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/606/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/princess-and-attendant-in-trompe-l-oeil-window-cma-132821).