Creative exchange between Dutch and Indian artists in the age of Rembrandt

The Mughals had expanded their rule over much of the subcontinent, while the Dutch arrived to set up the Dutch East India Company

Madonna and Infant Jesus painted by an unidentified Indian artist in the early 17th century borrows a biblical scene from a European print by Aegidius Sadeler while maintaining a strong Eastern expression. The flowers and wine flask are distinctly Mughal, while Mary and another woman in the room are wearing bindis and jewellery, as if goaded into doing so by an Indian elder.

India and the Netherlands in the Age of Rembrandt, an exhibition at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in collaboration with the Amsterdam-based Rijksmuseum, bears more evidence of how echoes of the Dutch style reached these shores