ABSTRACT
The British in seventeenth-century India operated on the idea that even thing and everyone had a 'price'. The presents through which the relationships were constituted were seen as a form of exchange to which a quantitative value could be attached, and which could be translated into a price. Thomas Roe's position as an ambassador of the King, but one who was financed, paid, and instructed by merchants, was an awkward one. By the time Roe came to India, English pictures were already an established part of Mughal courtly display; at Jahangir's new year celebrations, he found 'pictures of the King of England, the Queene. Gift-giving at the Mughal court was a crucial part of an elaborate system of patronage and power. Artists demonstrated their ability both to copy closely as well as to infuse the Christian figures with a different spirit or to place them in Indian settings.
