Musician riding composite camel

[The below text relates to three different objects: 1988.51.10, 1988.51.11, and 1988.51.23]

Composite figures, made up of several elements, are a popular subject in Indian painting, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Two basic types of composites are seen here: using animals-such as the camel [1988.51.23]-and using human figures- such as the horse [1988.51.11] and palanquin [1988.51.10].

The meaning and origin of these images is unclear. Animal composites are seen occasionally in Persian painting, sometimes appearing in illustrated manuscripts about mystical poetry. Some other, later examples are labeled "pictures of magic," making it likely that those images were associated with magic. The combinations of animal and human forms in art were already familiar in Hindu religious contexts. Animal composite pictures in India, in Mughal painting, may be the image type that gained wider popularity also in other north Indian painting styles.

The composites with human figures seem to have had different sources. It is possible that inspiration for them came from popular entertainment forms such as the performances of contortionists and acrobats, or from medieval Hindu texts on lovemaking that sometimes show groups of women making up, for example, the form of an elephant or a palanquin.

Regardless of the sources and meanings for such images, the genre clearly inspired many artists to produce increasingly inventive compositions with human and animal combinations.