Dodo 

Ustad Mansur painted this image of a Dodo alongside other birds around 1620 during the Mughal Empire. The image speaks to the role of art under empire, as it uses a common artistic genre to construct a specific type of knowledge. The Dodo, native to Mauritius, would have been a rare sight in India, but its presence in a Mughal painting indicates the reach of global trade and imperial networks. The Mughal court was deeply interested in natural history. Mansur was employed to record the flora and fauna of the empire. By painting this imported specimen, the artist contributes to an understanding of Mughal power as something connected to global knowledge. To learn more, consider how natural history and scientific illustration operated in other colonial contexts. What role did they play in asserting dominance over land and resources?