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On 15 May 1610, a painter named Cornelis Claesz. Heda (c. 1566–c. 1621) sat in his residence in the newly built royal city of Nauraspur and composed a letter to the Dutch East India Company (the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC). With compelling detail, Heda narrated the lengthy, tumultuous journey that led him, ultimately, to the advantageous situation in which he currently found himself: employed as a court artist to Ibrahim Adil Shah II (r. 1580–1627) of Bijapur, an Islamic kingdom in the Deccan region of South Asia. In Ibrahim, Heda found a receptive patron – a wealthy ruler who had ‘long wanted a painter from your land’ and who was willing to reward Heda richly for his service, as the artist proudly recounts.1 Although Heda would remain successfully ensconced in Bijapur until his death in 1622, the sultanate had not been the Dutch painter's intended destination when he left Haarlem years earlier. His itinerant experiences circa 1600 spanned the globe, beginning with an attempt to find court employment in Prague, and including a royal invitation to work in Isfahan as well as imprisonment at sea and an unplanned stay in Goa, before his arrival in Ibrahim's pleasure capital of Nauraspur (plate 1).
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