Like many other aspects of Mughal culture, Mughal school painters were strongly influenced by Persian precedents. Not only were the royal libraries well stocked with imported Persian paintings, albums and drawings, Persian artists and craftsmen were commonly employed by the Mughal aristocracy and by wealthy members of the merchant class.

The influence is clearly seen in this painting, particularly in Jahangir's pose. Both the head and the feet are painted in profile, while the rest of the body is rendered in only partial profile. This strategy is common to Persian painting, with iorigins found in the earliest relief carvings dating back to the Mesopotamian period. The flatness of the garden landscape in which the Shah is situated is also Persian derived. The strong realism seen in the face of Jahangir (see detailed view), however, is not an import. It is instead a local development, possibly influenced by European portraiture and religious paintings, which also may help explain the presence of Jahangir's halo. Some might argue that this "halo" is in fact a vestige of the mandorla found in Buddhist art, yet though the Mughal dynasty was strictly Muslim, it was more apt to be influenced by Christian imagery rather than Buddhist. Christianity was, after all, another "religion of the book" (a reference to the Old Testament), while Buddhism had all but disappeared from northern India by this time.