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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: A Short History of Indian Art

The Essay: A Short History of Indian Art: Episode 3: Ibrahim Adil Shah with Castanets

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Factual: History

A Short History of Indian Art

Episode 3

Episode 3: Ibrahim Adil Shah with Castanets

Ibrahim Adil Shah with Castanets

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William Dalrymple examines a 17th-century miniature portrait of the Sultan of Bijapur.

William Dalrymple discusses a miniature full-length portrait from the 17th century of Ibrahim Adil Shah II, the ruling sultan of the central Indian kingdom of Bijapur.

The writer and historian William Dalrymple continues his history of India through five great works of art and sculpture.

The third essay focuses on a miniature full-length portrait from the 17thcCentury. It's of the ruling Sultan of the central Indian kingdom of Bijapur, Ibrahim Adil Shah II, dressed in all his finery. It is an image of a powerful ruler before he came up against the might of the Mughals.

Dalrymple tells the story of this scholar ruler who was also a musician, poet and singer, who commissioned many of the greatest artists of the day who arrived at his court from as far afield as Central Asia and Europe. He was a free thinker who saw himself as both a devout Muslim and a Hindu devotee.
Dalrymple offers a profile of this important yet little-known Sultan and describes the remarkable explosion of artistic activity he oversaw

'A Short History of Indian Art' is a Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 3. The producer is Anthony Denselow.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

William Dalrymple tells a history of India through classic images of art and sculpture

William Dalrymple tells a history of India through art and sculpture. He describes their place within major artistic movements of India and their role in one one of the world's most diverse cultures

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