Though very few paintings of the period have come down to us, it is certain that a Deccani school of painting was developing under the patronage of Adil Shahi, Nizam Shahi and Qutb Shahi rulers. Ibrahim Adil Shah (II) (1580-1627) was a great lover of this art and it seems that a number of artists flourished in his reign.

A number of his portraits are available in the various museums of the world. His finest portrait is perhaps the one in the Lalgarh Palace at Bikaner. Another portrait of his is in British Museums which has been reproduced by Douglas Barrett and Basil Gray in “Painting of India”.

Both of these portraits depict peculiarities of Deccan school such as “richness and mellowed grandeur” and are set in a mysterious background. In some other portraits, such as those in the Naprstck Museum, Prague, and the Goenka Collection. Calcutta, he is shown as a musician. As Jagdish Mittal observes “like the contemporary Mughal portrait there is a lot of naturalistic modelling in Bijapur portraits produced from about A.D. 1615 to A.D. 1627.

Although both these schools imbibed this naturalism due to European influence, yet there was a difference. Mughal portraiture is more dazzling in technique while Bijapur naturalism remains subservient due to imaginative composition and poetic content.”

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He mentions various other paintings of the period such as an ‘Elephant’, “A Yogini”, “Saints”,, ‘Elephant fights’, ‘Sparrows’, ‘Falcons’, etc. and concludes that they possess “a distinct quality of their own in the very unconventional composition, rich landscape, mysterious atmosphere, gem-like colouring, lavish use of gold, exquisite finish, profusion of large plants, flowering shrubs, and typical Dakhni castles in the background and above all, the sweeping baroque rhythm that their Bijapur origin” is quite clear. Unfortunately in most cases we are unaware of the names of the painters who produced these great works.

Illustrated manuscripts

The earliest work is the manuscript of Najum-ul-ulum which contians about 876 illustrations. Some of the later illustrated works are Ajaib-ul-Makhluqat, Ratan Kalian, Nimat Nama, Khwas Nama and Masnawi of Nusrati.

Besides, there are some frescoes or wall paintings on some old buildings such as Sat Manzil Place and water pavilion at Kumatgi which belong to this period.