Patna Kalam is an off-shoot of Mughal painting. The Mughal style of painting matured in the regime of Jahangir, and his period was considered the golden era of Mughal paintings, but during the rule of Aurangzeb in the late 17th and early 18th century, artisans faced mass prosecution and aversion in art and painting. The painters migrated from Delhi looking for shelter in different places. One such group moved eastward and landed in Murshidabad under the patronage of the Nawab of Bengal and other local aristocrats. In the mid 18th century, after the fall of The Nawab of Bengal and subsequent decline of Murshidabad, the artisans started moving to the next biggest city in the east, Patna. In Patna they came under patronage of local aristocracy and often Indophile scions of the early East India and started a unique form of painting which came to be known as the Company painting, or Patna Kalam.