A Mountain Sheep Small Boxed Cards

Padarath
A Mountain Sheep, c. 1615–1618, from the Minto Album, India

The Minto Album, in which A Mountain Sheep appeared, was one of several albums—comprising gilded, vividly colored portraits of emperors, courtiers, and religious figures as well as images of plant and animal life—created for the Mughal emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who reigned between 1605 and 1658. The Persian term for these albums, muraqqa‘, refers to their patchwork construction: each folio is composed of several layers of paper pasted together to form a single, continuous sheet. Typically, each double-sided folio consisted of an image on one side and a panel of calligraphy on the other, each one surrounded by a lavish decorative border. The folios were then arranged within the album so that panels of calligraphy alternated with images.