Malik ‘Ambar was a military general and prime minister of the Indian sultanate of Ahmadnagar in the early 17th century. However, he was not born into ranks of power: he was taken from his birthplace in present-day Ethiopia and brought across the Indian Ocean as an enslaved person. In this portrait, he is painted like other 17th-century elite men in India: face in profile, body turned slightly towards the viewer, weapon in hand and dressed in the finest clothes. But this portrait does not answer some important questions: what did it take for Malik ‘Ambar to become an elite member of a society that was not his own? What happened to the other enslaved people he came with from the Horn of Africa?

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