Witsen’s collection included this album with portraits of successive rulers of the Mughal dynasty and beyond. The portraits were a source of knowledge for Witsen about the history of India. He even had the Persian inscriptions translated by Hendrick Francken, a minister who had worked for years in Smyrna (present-day Izmir). The miniatures were made in Golconda, where Indian miniaturists worked especially for Europeans who stayed there for the textile trade.
Watercolour on paper
