Corinne Lefèvre | CNRS Paris

The king at the window: origins and circulations of a visual topos of Mughal majestas

Summary In a talk entitled “The king at the window: origins and circulations of a visual topos of Mughal majestas,” Corinne Lefèvre has explored the history of the jharuka-i darshan or the “viewing window” from where the glorious padshah showed himself daily to his subjects. She started with examining the first-known instance of this architectural device in Akbar’s palace of Fatehpur Sikri (1572-1573) together with the earliest mentions thereof in contemporary Persian chronicles, also suggesting that the Gujarati architectural landscape of the time, especially the Shvetambara Jain temples of Mount Abu, may have served as a source of material inspiration for the invention of this Mughal tradition. From the late 16^th to early 17^th centuries, jharukas affixed on the outer façades of royal residences or on the back walls of public or private halls of audience indeed became a regular feature of palatial architecture. In addition, the figure of the emperor leaning on the jharuka gradually developed into a major motif of royal portraits—whether painted or engraved on metal. The power of this visual topos of majestas was such that it survived the interruptions of the actual practice and was massively appropriated by successor potentates during the 18^th to 19^th centuries, including by the British monarch George V in 1911. The second part of the paper mused on a possible Westward journey of the jharuka architectural and visual topos from Shah Jahan’s Lal Qil‘a in Delhi to Victoria’s Buckingham palace in London while also taking on board the Western tradition of the loggia in the making of the of what is today the tabloids’ favourite balcony in the world.