A rare red spinel inscribed with the names of emperors, a jade wine cup and a 110-carat emerald are among the treasures on display in “The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence,” an exhibition through May 5 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The show guides visitors through the legacy of three rulers in the 16th and 17th centuries who embraced artistic expression in what is modern-day India and beyond. In addition to the jewels, a selection of paintings, manuscripts, carpets, tiles and textiles helps to tell the story of international trade in both luxury goods and the skills of talented craftsmen under successive emperors: Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, the grieving husband who commissioned the Taj Mahal.
Susan Stronge, the show’s curator and a senior curator in the museum’s Asian department, explained the grandeur of the period. Her comments by phone and email have been edited and condensed.
The Mughal Empire has been described as one of the most refined courts ever to exist. Who were the Mughals?
The Mughals were a dynasty of Central Asian origin, Muslims ruling a population that was majority Hindu. The eventual stability and wealth of the empire under Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605, combined with his own personal initiatives, allowed the arts to flourish. The wealthy empire attracted Hindu and Muslim artists and craftsmen from all its provinces, including fantastic jewelers.
But the dynasty also had international influences?
The fact that Persian was the administrative language of the empire, as well as the language known by the cultivated elite, allowed vast numbers of Iranians to enter the royal workshops. So they taught each other different techniques. Armenians came as traders and acted as interpreters for foreigners, including the English and other European merchants who came to the court. Portuguese gem traders traveled across the empire from Portuguese Goa. Foreign artisans were employed in the imperial workshops, including the jeweler Augustin Hiriart of Bordeaux, in France, who supplied a throne design for Jahangir, and Abraham de Duyts, a diamond polisher from Antwerp, Belgium, who worked for Shah Jahan.
What was unique about how the Mughals handled gemstones?
At the Mughal court, as elsewhere in the subcontinent, the most important aspect of cutting or shaping a stone was to retain its size. Therefore, a diamond would be faceted to exploit its brilliance, but the facets are irregular. This is in marked contrast to European treatment of diamonds, where symmetry is the desired result, but it also leads to greater loss of weight. And emeralds are often carved — two of which are in the show.
Which jewel in the show is the most exquisite?
The most spectacular jeweled object is the dagger on loan from the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah/al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait. Its gold hilt and scabbard are set with an astonishing number of small, carefully shaped stones: 1,685 rubies, 271 natural unpolished diamonds and 62 emeralds. The design incorporates small birds with ruby-set wings.
The most important jade is a wine cup made for Jahangir in 1607-1608. On loan from the Al Thani Collection, it is the earliest dated imperial Mughal jade known so far and was probably made by the Iranian master Sa’ida Gilani. He was the head of the goldsmiths’ workshop under Jahangir and Shah Jahan, and he was a specialist in engraving the titles of the emperors on jade, precious stones and the important Chinese ceramics they collected. The other very significant jade, important for its size, superlative technique and imperial owner is the goat’s head cup made for Shah Jahan.
Perhaps the most famous of the three emperors is Shah Jahan of Taj Mahal fame. What do we know about his use of jewels?
Shah Jahan was famous in his own time for his knowledge of precious stones. His father, Jahangir, described an incident that demonstrates this: When Shah Jahan was a prince, Jahangir was given a spectacular single pearl as a New Year present from one of the nobles of the court. Jahangir thought that if a matching pearl could be found, the two could be set together in a bracelet. Shah Jahan remembered seeing a suitable pearl in a turban ornament among the vast numbers of jewels in the imperial treasury. When the jewelers identified the turban ornament, they found the pearl was an exact match in size, shape, luster and value. Sadly, the bracelet doesn’t exist any more.
When Shah Jahan became emperor, he commissioned a jeweled throne that took seven years to complete and was done under the supervision of Sa’ida. It was set with emeralds, diamonds, rubies and pearls, some from the emperor’s personal collection. The contemporary sources mention that some of the diamonds had European cuts; the rest were in Mughal fashion.
The most spectacular stone was a dynastic treasure: a 249.3-carat deep red spinel that was inscribed with the title of Ulugh Beg, an ancestor of the Mughals, to which the titles of Jahangir and Shah Jahan were added. The throne is lost, but the spinel is on display.
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