Artists

Wang Hui directed the production of twelve monumental scrolls recording the Kangxi Emperor's southern tour of 1689.

Bada Shanren was born Zhu Da into the Ming imperial family. After the Qing conquest in 1644 he lost his former status and entered a monastery.

Shitao freely reworked the painting of earlier masters, including Shen Zhou. Within one scroll he could combine different ways of depicting mountains, water and trees.

Wang Yuanqi studied with his grandfather Wang Shimin and developed ideas associated with Dong Qichang. He explored how separate mountain masses form a coherent space.

Kano Sansetsu made paintings for Japanese temple interiors. Old Plum decorated sliding partitions at Tenshoin in Kyoto's Myoshinji complex. The reverse carried the Eight Daoist Immortals.

Ogata Korin worked with painted screens and decorative forms. He lived in Edo from 1704 to 1709.

Sakai Hoitsu grew up in a wealthy samurai family and received a broad education. He became a Buddhist monk in 1797.

Ito Jakuchu inherited his family's grocery business in Kyoto and managed it for more than fifteen years. He devoted himself fully to painting only in his late thirties.

As a teenager, Hokusai trained to cut woodblocks before studying with the artist Katsukawa Shunsho.

Kiyohara Yukinobu was the daughter of the painter Kusumi Morikage. She adapted subjects from Japanese ink painting that had developed in the Muromachi period.

Soga Shohaku worked in eighteenth-century Kyoto. He deliberately looked back to the Soga painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Maruyama Okyo founded an approach associated with the Maruyama-Shijo school. He studied animals from life and from several viewpoints, gathering observations for paintings.

Yi Jeong, known as Taneun, was a great-great-grandson of Korea's King Sejong. He practised poetry, calligraphy and ink painting. These arts shared a culture of brushwork.

The maker of these Korean scrolls is unidentified. The museum relates their manner to An Gyeon and suggests they belonged to an Eight Views cycle.

This is a conventional name for an unidentified illustrator of the Jain Kalpasutra, a text about the lives of the tirthankaras. His manner continues western Indian traditions.

Devidasa came from a family of painters. His father was Kripal and his son Golu; all three worked on Rasamanjari illustrations. Devidasa's series is dated 1695.

Manaku was the son of Pandit Seu and brother of Nainsukh. He worked for the Guler court within the family workshop.

This conventional name identifies an unknown painter associated with a mid-sixteenth-century Bhagavata Purana manuscript. The museum places it in the Delhi-Agra region.

The painting belongs to the courtly tradition of Kishangarh, but its painter is unidentified.

The painter of Mahadevi is unidentified. The museum associates the work with Bikaner, where this form of the goddess held significance for the ruling family.

This conventional name identifies the painter of a Buddhist palm-leaf manuscript. The museum associates it with a monastery workshop in eastern India.

The painter of this Gita Govinda leaf is unidentified. The figures, strong colours and patterned clouds connect it with early Malwa painting.

The painter of this ritual crown is unidentified. The Metropolitan Museum suggests a Newari artist working in Tibet. Its five Buddha images belong to the structure of Buddhist ritual.

Habiballah of Sava worked at the Safavid court. Around 1600 he added paintings to an older manuscript of Attar's Language of the Birds and signed one leaf.

Reza Abbasi trained with his father, Ali Asghar, and entered Shah Abbas I's court as a young painter. He received the honorific Abbasi in 1603 but soon left royal service.

Bihzad worked at Sultan Husayn Bayqara's court in Herat and later moved to Tabriz. His manuscript illustrations combine complex spaces with observations of everyday activity.

Sultan Muhammad came from Tabriz and was a leading painter in the Safavid royal workshop by the mid-1510s. He taught the future Shah Tahmasp to paint.

Qasim ibn Ali came from Shiraz and worked at the Safavid court in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Several illustrations in Shah Tahmasp's Shahnama are attributed to him.

Miskin painted at Akbar's court. The court chronicler Abu'l-Fazl listed him among seventeen leading artists. His work shows a particular interest in animals, their bodies and behaviour.

Basawan joined Akbar's atelier as a young painter and contributed to major manuscripts, including the Tutinama and Hamzanama.

The painter of this leaf is unidentified. It belongs to the work of artists who illustrated Persian translations of Hindu texts under Akbar.

Chitarman worked at Shah Jahan's court. His earliest dated painting is a portrait of the ruler from 1627–28, soon after his accession.

Govardhan was among the leading Mughal court painters. Under Shah Jahan he helped replace damaged illustrations in a prized manuscript of Sa'di's Gulistan.

Both painters are credited with The House of Bijapur, made for the sultanate's last ruler, Sikandar, before the Mughal conquest of 1686. It assembles members of the dynasty in one gathering.

A sultan's tughra involved different specialists. A calligrapher drew the established combination of name, titles and formulas of authority; an illuminator added floral ornament and gold.

The illustrator of al-Jazari’s book is unidentified. The manuscript is dated 1315; the Met places its origin in probably Syria or Iraq.