Abu al-Hasan worked at a period when the terms of art itself were being renegotiated.
The record lists Abu al-Hasan as Mughal painter.
Abu al-Hasan was born in 1589. His recorded nationality is Mughal Empire.
This was the period in which the artist became an individual with a signature, a reputation and a price.
He worked as painter and artist.
An artist's reputation moves with taste, but the work stays exactly where it was left.
That the work was made in Mughal Empire shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Abu al-Hasan died in 1700, aged 111. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
