This is a sumptuously illustrated catalogue of the Mughal paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art with a special focus on the museum's recent acquisition of the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and the Ralph Benkaim Collection of Mughal painting. Included in the volume are six thematic essays followed by a detailed catalogue of each painting from the Benkaim Collection. This catalogue is especially valuable for scholars, as it provides an illustration of the front and back of each painting, translations of all the inscriptions, the provenance of each painting, measurements, and where it has been published previously.

Marcus Frazer opens the volume with an essay entitled “Painting, Patronage and Propaganda in Mughal Painting.” This essay focuses heavily on the early patronage of Akbar, although it does discuss works produced under the imperial Mughals through the eighteenth century. The emphasis on early painting output under Akbar is appropriate, as the Cleveland Museum of Art holds an illustrated manuscript of the Tuti-nama (Tales of the Parrot), believed by a number of scholars to be one of the earliest products of Akbar's painting atelier. The overview of 300 years of Mughal painting is clearly written and appropriate for a general audience (those with no background in this material), as well as for a more learned one. Frazer presents Akbar as if he were a self-made genius, possibly underestimating Abu al-Fazl's significant role in the development of his ideology and ideas of statecraft. Tantalizing contributions are Frazer's references to Shia inclinations, especially on the part of Akbar's mother, which are rarely considered in other scholarly writings.

Frazer's essay is followed by one authored by Sonya Quintanilla. She, with the aid of Frazer, writes a long history of Mughal painting and history through the paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection. Their history of the Mughals is a traditional one found in most texts, not recognizing revisionist understandings of the Din-i Ilahi or recent attitudes concerning Aurangzeb's reign. However, Quintanilla's close readings of individual paintings is remarkable, especially her ability to link small details with contemporary events. She thus produces a lively understanding of the periods she discusses through this extraordinary collection of Mughal illustrations.

Significant portions of the Shah-nama, the lengthy Persian epic poem about the rise and fall of Iran's pre-Islamic rulers, first penned by the poet Firdausi (c. 934–1010), and then illustrated multiple times in India and Iran, are relayed in an engaging manner by Mohsen Ashtiany. He uses both Persian and Indian paintings in the museum's collection to relate the stories in the Shah-nama that concern the great hero, Rustam, and his amazing horse, Rakhsh. In this cycle of events, we learn how Rustam and Rakhsh rid Iran of incompetent and malicious rulers in what were essentially wars between good and evil. Ashtiany engages the reader with his analysis of Firdausi's text and the various artists' interpretations of the events depicted.

Stories related in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts about prophets common to all three of the Abrahamic religions—Joseph, Moses, and Elijah—are the focus of Catherine Glynn's engrossing essay. She discusses some of the thirty-six paintings in the museum's collection of Islamic and Rajput art that concern Joseph. She first focuses on an early seventeenth-century composition done in the court of Prince Salim, the future Jahangir, during the years he rebelled against his father, Akbar, before ascending the throne. Glynn argues that this nim qalam painting skillfully captures the terror of the young Joseph as his brothers kidnap him and plan his demise. Most of the museum's paintings featuring Joseph are not from Biblical or Koranic versions, but from the magnificent Sufi rendition of the story of Zulayka, the wife of the king of Egypt, and her love for the slave Joseph, known in Persian and Arabic as Yusuf. Written by the Persian poet Jami in the late fifteenth century, Yusuf and Zulayka became immediately popular and was illustrated by artists well into the eighteenth century. Glynn, again through images in the museum's collection, not only retells the story but also shows how it was imagined in courts ruled by both Hindus and Muslims. In some cases the ruling raja was portrayed as Yusuf, showing how powerful the image of Joseph had become. Here Glynn, as the donor of the paintings, shows the depth of her knowledge and scholarly acumen.

While the paintings of prophets common to the Abrahamic traditions discussed by Glynn are depicted in styles widely recognized as Mughal or Rajput, those illustrations concerning the life of Christ, considered by Pedro Moura Carvalho, all reveal heavy doses of Western influence. This can range from the figural types to the clothing and style of architecture depicted. The main focus of this essay is an illustrated manuscript of the Mir'at al-Quds, Mirror of Holiness, written in Persian by a Spanish Jesuit and presented to the Mughal Akbar in 1602. This text, about the life of Christ, was drawn from a variety of sources and written in a simple Persian accessible to many. A total of nineteen copies of this Persian text are extant, but only three are illustrated, one of which is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This work, like the painting of Joseph and His Brothers, was produced in the workshop of Prince Salim, the future Jahangir, while rebelling against his father. The illustrations chosen for the manuscript, Moura Carvalho suggests, are unusual ones and not commonly found in Western texts on Christ's life. He proposes that this is because there was no Jesuit at court to direct the production of illustrations. The essay ends with a brief discussion of why Christian imagery appealed to these two Mughal emperors, a topic that others have addressed in a more developed manner.

The final essay, by Ruby Lal, concerns Mughal images of the world of women, which she discusses as “Spaces of Pleasure and Authority.” She makes clear that Mughal women were not an oppressed lot who existed only for the enjoyment of men, but lived lives that were equal to yet separate from men. Her analysis engages not only Mughal practice, for example, women crossdressing as men, but also much older ones from ancient India that are depicted on Buddhist monuments, arguing that these are continuous traditions. A unique and important portrait of the famous seventeenth-century queen Nur Jahan, holding a portrait of her husband, the emperor Jahangir, ends her discussion. Lal presents this rare portrait of a Mughal woman as an indication of her extraordinary power.

Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories serves as a highly readable introduction to Mughal painting. It will be useful to scholars in the detailed information provided about the Cleveland Museum of Art's important collection of Mughal painting and to the general public. Its 400 color illustrations, many of them details of the paintings, will be especially welcomed by anyone interested in Mughal visual culture.