Image: YuanEmperorAlbumKhubilaiPortrait

Description: A painting of Shizu, better known as Kublai Khan, as he would have appeared in the 1260s (although this painting is a posthumous one executed shortly after his death in February of 1294, by a Nepalese artist and astronomer Anige). The painting is done in the Chinese portrait style. It is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan; colors and ink on silk, 59.4 by 47 cm. Kublai's white robes reflect his desired and symbolic role as a religious Mongol shaman. On pages 66 to 67 of Morris Rossabi's Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (paperback), he has this to say of the portrait and of a later portrait in 1280 of a hunt, also seen in the English Wikipedia article for Kublai Khan: A Chinese portrait of him painted around this time [i.e. roughly the time of the rebellion of Li Tang and execution of Wang Wentong in 1262] shows a robust, determined man. He wears a simple white cloth garment; no silks or furs adorn his body. His black and white hat is hardly lavish, and his mustache and beard are trim and obviously cared for. Most important, the picture shows that Khubilai had not yet abandoned himself to sensual pleasures. Though certainly not gaunt, neither was he obese, as he became toward the end of his reign. Probably food, Chinese or any other kind, had not yet become a consuming passion; nor does he show any sign of being a heavy drinker, as later he would become. His alertness and robustness contrast sharply with his appearance in a painting executed in 1280. Two decades after assuming power in China, he had become grotesquely fat. In the Artibus Asiae article The Portraits of Khubilai Khan and Chabi by Anige (1245-1306), a Nepali Artist at the Yuan Court, Anning Jing provides the history of this painting and that of Kublai's wife Chabi, painted by a Nepalese artist named Anige (also known as Araniko), who was a confidant of Kublai and was commissioned to oversee several public works projects as well. Portrait cropped out of a page from an album depicting several Yuan emperors (Yuandai di banshenxiang), now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei (inv. nr. zhonghua 000324). Original size is 47 cm wide and 59.4 cm high. Paint and ink on silk. For the full page, see Image:YuanEmperorAlbumKhubilaiFull.jpg.
Title: YuanEmperorAlbumKhubilaiPortrait
Credit: Artdaily.org
Author: Anige (also known as Araniko) of Nepal, an astronomer, engineer, painter, and confidant of Kublai Khan
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No