Indian Art 13


Fall-front cabinet, Gujarat, circa 1600, teak overlaid with mother-of-pearl and black lac, with engraved brass mounts © Victoria and Albert Museum, London


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was Mansur, and that the animal was brought from Ethiopia by Turks who accompanied the Mughal courtier Mir Ja’far on his mission. Te arts continued to flourish under


Jahangir as new materials and techniques associated with the decorative arts came into fashion. Jade imported from Khotan was made into vessels, and Jahangir’s jade wine cup, decorated with calligraphy and dated AH1016 (1608),


is featured in the


exhibition. Te cup is the earliest known dated Mughal jade. It was almost certainly made by Sa’ida Gilani, the Iranian supervisor of the imperial goldsmiths’ department, who was renowned for his skill in making jade vessels. Jewellery also came to the fore


during this period. Te technique of enamelling became one of the greatest arts of the Mughals. Beyond the imperial workshops, luxury industries in centres across the empire also supplied the royal family and court. Skilled Persian craftsmen came to the Mughal court to establish the imperial workshops and produce jewellery of the highest quality for the emperors. Kundan is quintessentially an Indian technique where layers of narrow gold ribbons are wedged around a gemstone. However, enamelling was not indigenous to India, it came from the Roman world via Byzantium to the Islamic world and was probably learnt from European goldsmiths, perhaps in Goa, to the Mughal courts. Akbar had sent an embassy to Goa in 1601, and he had ordered its members to invite skilled European craftsmen to work at the Mughal court. By the reign of Jahangir, enamelling on gold and silver was well established and widely used. Te third section of the exhibition is


devoted to Shah Jahan, probably the most famous Mughal emperor in the West, best known for creating the Taj Mahal. It was during his reign that sumptuous artistic production, combined with a unified approach to style, culminated in the archetype of Mughal decorative arts. Te vast wealth accumulated in the


imperial treasuries allowed Shah Jahan to pursue his passion for architecture and to commission extravagant jewellery, and other objects such as jewelled dagger and sword hilts. Te harmony in design was partly shaped by the process of creating the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum built by the emperor for his late wife Arjumand Begum (1593-1631), also known as Mumtaz Mahal, the chief consort of the emperor. Susan Stronge writes in the catalogue, ‘Te mausoleum follows many established aspects of Mughal architecture deriving from Timurid- Iranian tradition. At the same time it codifies principles and designs that would shape the work of artists and craftsmen


in imperial workshops


across the empire for the rest of the reign. Te flowering plants carved on the walls of the mausoleum and its


Pendant, circa 1610-20, Mughal court workshops, nephrite jade set with rubies and emeralds in gold © Victoria and Albert Museum, London


gateways would be repeated on all the major metropolitan monuments of Shah Jahan’s reign and influence almost everything produced in the imperial workshops, in all media’. Shah Jahan’s craftsmen adopted


some floral motifs from earlier reigns, combining Safavid conventions with stylised forms taken from Hindustani traditions. Artists working for Shah Jahan adapted these motifs and added flower-filled vases copied from Western prints. Sue Stronge notes,


‘One of the chronograms giving the date of the completion of the tomb proclaims, “May the abode of Mumtaz Mahal be Paradise”. Her husband extended the conceit, using architectural ornamentation and the products of the imperial workshops to present his empire as an earthly paradise’. Tis new style using blossoming


plants and flowers was carved in stone, woven, and embroidered on textiles, painted in the borders of albums, and enamelled in gold on objects made for the court. Tis flowering of the Mughal aesthetic style epitomised a tolerant confluence of Islamic and Hindu traditions that invigorated each other to blend into a distinctive genre. Tese patterns continue to be used in Indian workshops today. Shah Jahan’s reign ended abruptly in


1658, when he became seriously ill as his second son Aurangzeb seized the chance to take the throne. As the Mughal empire declined, so too did the patronage and production of luxury objects and the arts. Court artists and craftsmen sought work elsewhere, allowing the Mughal aesthetic to spread and influence design in foreign courts. Mughal design, created through the


continued patronage of these three emperors, has been used through the centuries


in architecture, paintings,


• Until 4 May 2025, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, vam.ac.uk • Catalogue available


jewellery, furniture and many other objects. Mughal floral motifs are now used all over the world. And the Taj Mahal’s serene beauty still influences and affects the 7 to 8 million visitors who make a pilgrimage to ‘paradise’ each year.


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