“India’s Great Mughals” Exhibit Celebrates Creative Output, Spans a Century!
The 500-year milestone of the Mughal Empire’s founding (1526-2026) is the perfect time for a new exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond (VMFA). India’s Great Mughals: Art, Power, and Opulence offers valuable lessons in history and art while celebrating the extraordinarily large and varied creative output of the period. Before Richmond, the display was in London and Hong Kong; it goes next to Nashville, Tennessee in 2027, but (alas) not to India!
Expertly curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London (from where it derives most of its pieces), it has also drawn from the VMFA’s South Asia collection, and more than thirty others, among them, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, and the al-Thani Collection in Qatar. Paintings not seen in a generation are included as well as two hundred-plus objects made of cloth, enamel, glass, ivory, marble, metal, paper, stone, and wood.
At its peak, the Moghul Empire was one of the world’s richest and most progressive, encompassing most of subcontinental India, and far outstripping contemporary Islamic empires of the Ottomans and Safavids (1). Although its history is long and complex — the first emperor (Babur) a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, ascended the throne in 1526, and the last (Bahadur Shah Zafar), was deposed by the British more than three centuries later — the exhibition focuses on three rulers: Akbar (1556–1605), Jahangir (1605–27), and Shah Jahan (1628–58). Their greatness derives from their patronage of art, how they deployed that art, and their curiosity and openness to other cultures.
Historical Reference Timeline
The historical timeline is significant. The artistic golden age of the Mughals began decades before the 1607 founding of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, Jamestown in Virginia. In 1609, Captain William Hawkins, an Englishman with the East India Company, arrived at Jahangir’s court to broker a trade agreement. Although the three emperors are roughly contemporary with British monarchs Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, the Mughal empire was already synonymous with magnificence, luxury, and power — whereas England (at the time) had only just begun to dream of empire!
Each room is filled with exceptional pieces: sandstone jalis (stone screen windows), huqqa (water pipe) bases, ewers, decanters, divination rings, and braziers made of bronze and copper, gold leaf-illustrated manuscript pages from Akbar’s Kitab Khana (House of Books), mother-of-pearl and ivory cabinets, jeweled swords, scabbards, punch daggers, and natural history paintings (demonstrating the courts’ attention to science and reason), and marble balustrades inlaid with jasper, carnelian, and topaz. There are also precious gems (see pics): diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, including a red spinel inscribed with the names of six rulers, and a Colombian 110-carat emerald pendant carved with a flower motif — all once part of the emperor’s throne. There is so much to see that some paintings — also called Mughal Miniatures (2) — nearly got overlooked!
Language and Cross-Cultural Influences
Most of the 100 million people (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, and Christians) governed by the Mughals did not share the religion, ancestry, or language of the rulers. To unite a multilingual empire, language became a key tool and they continued with the language already (3) in use, Persian, the lingua franca of prestige and literature. By employing Persian-proficient administrators across communities — Afghan, Rajput Hindu, Safavid, and Indian Muslim — they created a court elite (like a civil service) whose identity was defined not by ethnic or religious origin, but by a shared language and culture. The Mughals were not native Persian speakers (4) but could see the value of it.
While Persian became the language of every imperial decree and land revenue record, at Akbar’s Maktab Khana (translation house) in Fatehpur Sikri, scholars translated major Sanskrit texts (the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Upanishads) into Persian, signaling esteem for the heritage and philosophical traditions of the Hindu population.
Trade in products, ideas, and people brought an abundance of influences. The multiethnic court thrived in the diversity of a cross-cultural collaboration that welcomed Hindu and Muslim artists, Iranian painters, calligraphers, and architects using skills, imagery, techniques, and materials from around the world.
Watercolors of court scenes are displayed alongside delicate textiles, brilliantly colored carpets, canopies, and fine objects made of rock crystal, jade, and precious metals. Of note is the hybrid art created in court workshops by Iranian and Hindustani artists and craftsmen and the influence of European art brought by Christian missionaries as well as the impact on Moghul painting of Christian iconography, including figures of Jesus and Mary painted by local Hindu and Muslim artists.
Religious Tolerance & Complexity
The three emperors embraced religious complexity and did not expect the Hindu population to convert to Islam. They were attracted to Hindu myth and mystics. Akbar admired the songs of Rajput princess Meerabai of Chittor, a central figure in the Hindu Bhakti (devotional) movement. The success of Mughal rule depended on how well the rulers managed relations with non-Muslim subjects. After subduing Rajput tribes, Akbar guaranteed their right to public prayer and permission to construct temples. He commissioned his artists to create art that focused on peaceful coexistence and respect for all faiths.
In A Muslim Pilgrim Learns a Lesson in Piety from a Brahman (5), a painting that blends Persian composition, Hindu imagery, and European Renaissance techniques (see below pic, description), a pilgrim walks through an Indian landscape where he encounters a Hindu ascetic in the road and learns a lesson in humility. The work is considered a meditation on religious tolerance and demonstrates that spiritual sincerity can be recognized and appreciated across different faiths.
The Mughals were also attracted to the mystic Islamic Sufi movement represented here (see pics below) by Sufi-inscribed tiles from a mosque in Lahore and a Sufi dervish’s horn for drinking wine and collecting alms. Court painters illustrated the words of Sufi poets Hafez and Rumi by transforming their metaphors and bringing parables to life.
Religious tolerance — the norm under Akbar — shifted gradually from active pluralism (6) to a more traditional, orthodox Islamic state policy while maintaining overall administrative tolerance. Each emperor balanced personal beliefs with the practical need to govern a vast, multi-religious population. While freedom of worship remained intact, Jahangir acted harshly against specific political or religious figures (7), when his throne or authority were challenged.
Akbar’s Affinity for Art
Crowned in 1556 at age 13, Akbar transformed the empire during his half-century reign, integrating military might with a love of art and culture that his successors would share. The court painting style begun in his time, combines closely observed reality with fantasy.
He commissioned the Hamza-Nama (Book of Hamza) in the 1570s, one of the earliest examples of Mughal painting, chronicling the exploits of Muslim hero Hamza and his followers as they battle demons, giants, and supernatural creatures (see pic). Unlike small Mughal miniatures, these large paintings on cotton cloth feature the giant fleeing mid-air, skillfully capturing the magical warfare of the epic. (Note: Austria’s MAK Vienna, which provided this piece, holds the largest single collection of surviving Hamza-Nama works.)
The focus on artisans is evident alongside Karkhanas (ateliers, workshops) and Kitab Khanas (libraries) — all the more important given that Akbar could neither read nor write despite being a keen patron of learning. A superb selection of folios from 16th-century imperial manuscripts of the Qur’an, Hamza-Nama, Akbar-Nama, and Ramayana line the walls, accompanied by texts and framed calligraphy.
Funded by the imperial treasury, the workshops were staffed by craftsmen and artisans from across the empire, merging their different techniques into a single distinctive Mughal style. The Tasvir Khana (painting workshop) employed more than 200 painters, the majority of whom were Hindu, with Muslim, Persian, and Central Asian masters working alongside them. Other karkhanas produced textiles, books, jewelry, gold and silverware, perfumes, and carpets.
To help him rule a diverse multi-ethnic empire, Akbar commissioned artworks connecting his Muslim Central Asian origin to local Hindu traditions. A manuscript of the Persian translation of the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic, was produced during his reign, with a seal indicating that it had once been kept in his mother’s library.
To strengthen alliances with local Hindu rulers, Akbar married a Rajput princess as did his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan. Jahangir and Shah Jahan had Hindu mothers representing the fusion of regional Indian and broader Islamic court cultures.
Jahangir’s Court Dazzles!
Inheriting a wealthy and stable kingdom, Jahangir continued his father’s statecraft by expanding multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism and encouraging his artists to innovate and refine. Like Akbar, he ran a diverse court that mixed Persian, Indian, European, and Central Asian traditions, welcomed many religions, supported the arts, and opened up high-ranking roles in government to Hindus and other non-Muslims.
His court was famous for its opulence. According to explanatory notes, “the dazzling appearance of the court inspired England’s ambassador Sir Thomas Roe, to describe it in a 1616 letter to the future King Charles I as ‘the treasury of the world.’”
Collaboration with European artists is evident in a painting of Jahangir on a throne by a French goldsmith from Bordeaux. There are botanical engravings by Flemish artisans and examples of how the Mughals adapted them. Relations with China are featured by a white, blue, and imperial yellow porcelain collection, and with Safavids and Armenians by objects of copper and bronze. Portuguese merchants are shown visiting the court and, oddly, speaking with angels as artists try to understand their Christian religion! Remarkably, a Mughal round shield covered in mother-of-pearl — which entered Medici family collections in the 1590s — is on display, a loan from the Bargello Museum in Florence.
Jahangir revolutionized the royal workshop, championing realism in paintings. He had master painters like Ustad Mansur document exotic flora and fauna with precise scientific accuracy. His candid personal memoirs contain botanical notes in addition to other musings. He was obsessed with wine culture and commissioned dark green jade and pale nephrite wine cups and bowls which were engraved with Persian verses and calligraphy by master craftsman Sa'ida-ye Gilani.
Despite religious restrictions against alcohol, Jahangir is shown in paintings and engraved coins with a wine cup in hand. Royal atelier painters were likely first-hand witnesses to his addiction which he described in his memoirs. The wine cups on display have grapevine motifs symbolizing the regenerative power of nature, an enduring interest for the emperor. Also adorning the cups are poetic verses composed by Jahangir himself.
This allegorical painting by Bichitr (8) titled Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings (see image) celebrates the importance of the spiritual over the worldly. The emperor sits on an hourglass throne above four men showing that time and truth matter more than material power. He has a large halo combining the sun and moon and is slightly larger than the other figures creating a sense of divine status. He appears to revere the Sufi saint while ignoring the two monarchs (an Ottoman Sultan and English King James I). The last figure is the artist, Bichitr, who includes himself in the scene to show that artists were honored at court.
Shah Jahan’s Paradisal Garden
Under Shah Jahan, the empire’s territories were expanded and its wealth increased. He had a passion for building, including, the Red Fort (Lal Qila), the Jama Masjid mosque, and his best known work, the Taj Mahal. His reign is celebrated as the golden age of Mughal Indo-Islamic architecture and marked by the use of white marble, strict symmetry, delicate gemstone inlay, and expansive formal gardens. Accompanied by a short video of the Taj Mahal, the exhibition showcases architectural components to demonstrate construction designs, including painted tiles, and a pierced marble screen mounted on a gallery wall.
During this period, floral motifs used in the Taj replaced other traditional Mughal patterns and were carved in stone, jade and crystal, woven on textiles, painted on manuscripts, and enameled on objets d’art — evoking an ideal world free of death, disease, or poverty. The aim was to project an image of the Emperor as a wise and just monarch who ruled over a garden of paradise as described by 13th-century Sufi poet Amir Khusrau: “If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” (In Persian: “Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast”).
The couplet — which is famously inscribed in gold calligraphy on the walls of the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audience) at the Red Fort in Delhi — is also displayed prominently in the exhibit’s Shah Jahan section.
At the peak of the emperor’s reign, the concept of the cultivated paradisal garden (9) had evolved into a metaphor for peace under imperial rule. Khusrow speaks not only to the decadence that defined the artistic tastes of a wealthy court, but also, perhaps, to the moment of religious and cultural pluralism that was cultivated by the three Mughal rulers featured here — long before European colonization and the divisions it wrought and solidified.
Textbooks, Provenance, Sourcing
Given the present-day scaling back, even erasure, of medieval history (specifically, the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal periods) in Indian school textbooks and the constant vilification of the country’s former Muslim rulers as being foreign-born and therefore not worth studying, it is disappointing — but unsurprising — that this exhibition will not be seen in India. (Interestingly, the reason given for curriculum changes and the skipping of five centuries of Muslim rule was to lessen the burden on school kids! Not a joke!)
What is surprising though is the failure to address inevitable questions about the provenance of objects which arise from the history of colonial and post-colonial looting and theft! Although American museums (as opposed to British) have done a somewhat better job of identifying and returning stolen art, they continue to hide behind the fig leaf that much of their questionable pieces were acquired before the signing of treaties like the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property, and that standard repatriation frameworks do not apply!
Note that art repatriation is usually government-to-government and — while India has actively sought the return of high-profile items like the Koh-i-Noor diamond and Peacock Throne (10), both ironically of Mughal origin — it has not yet (given the Mughal Empire’s purging from history textbooks — demanded the return of, say, the Mughal folio page, Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings!
It is strange and somewhat disheartening that none of the outstanding objects on display come from South Asia whose museums (and private collections) have a surfeit of Mughal artworks, as I recall! With the exception of some relatively new Middle Eastern collections (Kuwait, Qatar), nearly all the exhibits here have been sourced from European and North American institutions!
Such quibbles (legit though they may be) do not detract from the show which is providing viewers a welcome opportunity to enjoy a landmark and well-organized show — at leisure, and in one place! Thank you, VMFA and V&A!
Cultural Appropriation
The multiculturalism of the exhibit also exposes the idea of cultural appropriation in art and religion as nonsensical! The Mughal court viewed cross-cultural borrowing as a celebration of shared human heritage that invalidates strict ownership boundaries. They reveled in borrowing, experimenting with, adapting, and appropriating!
One of the fun paintings, titled A Turkey Cock (image below) by Ustad Mansur, a renowned naturalist and court artist, was commissioned by Jahangir after receiving the turkey as a gift from the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa in 1612. Native to the Americas, turkeys were previously unknown in India, making it an exotic and fascinating subject for the emperor. A trumpeting elephant was an everyday sight for the Indian Mughals, not so much a gobbling turkey!
Legitimacy through Art
The Mughals established their political legitimacy by using art, notably, illustrated manuscripts, as powerful visual tools to project divine right. Since much of the population was illiterate, highly stylized paintings were a universal language, reinforcing their absolute authority.
Lavishly illustrated historical chronicles — like the Akbar Nama (Book of Akbar), Jahangir Nama or Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Book of Jahangir) and Padshahnama (Book of Emperors) — were commissioned to document their reigns and portray them as undisputed sovereigns.
Influenced by Sufi mysticism and European Christian art, Mughal artists painted a golden halo around the heads of emperors to symbolize divine favor. Lion and lamb motifs (see painting of Akbar below) were included to signal that Mughal rule brought justice and harmony. Expensive materials like crushed gold, silver, and lapis lazuli were used in paintings to demonstrate the limitless wealth of the imperial treasury.
By blending bright Indian colors with Persian painting techniques and European realism, Mughal workshops created a sophisticated, distinct style that established the court as the global center of refinement. Completed manuscripts were much in demand and distributed to local nobles and foreign rulers as luxury items and diplomatic gifts, serving as physical reminders of Mughal supremacy.
Culture as Soft Power
By the seventeenth century, the shared aesthetic of Mughal culture had spread far beyond the country’s borders, transcending any single community.
Regional courts adopted distinct Mughal painting techniques: the famous Radha portraits from Kishangarh, for instance, had their origin in the Mughal Tasvir Khana. Iconic Rajput miniature schools (Mewar, Marwar, and Bundi) absorbed painting techniques from established Mughal workshops before pivoting to Hindu epic themes.
Mughal architecture transformed Rajput palaces between the 15th and 18th centuries, blending haphazardly-structured hill forts with symmetrical layouts. The Amer Fort in Jaipur and City Palace in Udaipur — once purely defensive — developed into elegant residential complexes with pavilions, formal gardens, courtyards (chowks), floral motifs, ornamental stonework (jali screens), and windows for jharokha darshan, where the public could glimpse the ruler and receive his blessing, similar to a modern Pope!
Hindustani classical music was also shaped by the Mughal court. Persian music, Indian classical forms, and Central Asian instruments combined over generations into a distinctly Mughal musical culture. Akbar’s court was home to master composer, Mian Tansen, who united indigenous Hindu and Islamic Sufi traditions.
The Persian vocabulary entered local languages across the subcontinent, used by non-Muslim courts such as the Sikhs and Marathas before being replaced by English and Urdu in the 1830s. Like English today, Persian was a common medium for governance, law, and diplomacy among diverse linguistic groups. Languages like Bengali, Kashmiri, Marathi Punjabi, and Sindhi absorbed Persian administrative, cultural, and legal vocabulary. Meanwhile, emerging from Persian, Hindustani eventually became Urdu and Hindi, the main languages of the northern subcontinent.
The most durable form of power is soft power to shape what people find meaningful. More than three centuries after Shah Jahan’s death, his greatest work, the Taj Mahal, still draws eight million visitors a year. Hindustani classical music still resonates. The development of “Hindustani” — the vernacular that emerged from centuries of Persian — is a direct result of Mughal rule and still shapes the subcontinent. These are undeniable cultural legacies that the Mughals built and will remain an intrinsic component of their soft power.
Mughal Heritage
While Taj Mahal by Shah Jahan remains the most visible artistic heritage, it cannot dwarf the achievements of the other emperors. Jahangir’s was to establish the Golden Age of Mughal painting and the documentation of natural science. For Akbar, it was creation of workshops (Karkhanas) across disciplines and managing their output. Art and culture flourish during peace, not war, and perhaps the greatest patrimony of the three emperors was ensuring a century of lasting peace!
Akbar’s enlightened policy of universal religious tolerance — a novel concept for the period that had no takers in the West — had the greatest impact. The subcontinent's pluralism and interfaith debates involving half a dozen religions contrasted sharply with Europe's violent sectarian conflicts. Under Elizabeth I, England executed Catholics while France saw mass killings of Protestant Huguenots under Catherine de Medici during the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the series of civil wars known as Guerre de Religion (Wars of Religion, 1562-1598). In Central Europe, sectarian fights during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) involving the Holy Roman Empire and Protestants caused whole scale destruction while Jewish people faced widespread anti-Semitism with expulsions, persecution, and attacks across many European kingdoms.
Notes
(1) The Ottoman Empire was a powerful Islamic state founded around 1299 by Turkic leader Osman I. At its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, it spanned parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa but came to an end after World War I. In 1923, it was replaced by modern Turkey.
The Safavid Empire (1501–1736) was a major Iranian dynasty that ruled over modern-day Iran, Azerbaijan, and parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Founded by Shah Ismail I, it established Twelver Shi'a Islam as the official state religion, shaping the cultural and religious identity of Iran.
(2) Mughal miniatures were paintings created on handmade paper using opaque watercolor pigments made from minerals and plants. They were highly intricate artwork kept in folios or albums (muraqqa) and also used as manuscript illustrations. “Miniature” describes their small size and attention to detail. Favorite themes included daily court life, royal meetings, hunting and battle scenes, and flora and fauna. Artists used precious stones and real gold and silver to enhance their beauty as well as Islamic calligraphy and Persian verses.
(3) More than 300 years of Muslim rule preceded the Mughals in the form of the Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate, 1206 to 1526. The exhibition’s organizers do not clarify that — prior to the Mughals — Persian was already the language of court and of the administration.
(4) Of Timurid and Turko-Mongol descent, the Mughals were ethnically and culturally Chagatai Turk, not native Persian speakers! The empire’s founder, Babur, wrote his autobiography, the Baburnama, in Chagatai Turkic and was also fluent in Persian. His son Humayun spoke Chagatai. By the time of the third emperor, Akbar, Persian was firmly established as the official state language, although the emperors and their households also spoke Turkic and (increasingly) Hindustani!
(5) Created for Akbar’s imperial workshop, the painting A Muslim Pilgrim Learns a Lesson in Piety from a Brahman (image below), is based on a manuscript page from the Khamsa (Quintet) by poet Amir Khusrau and depicts a Muslim haji (see turban, blue robe, staff) heading toward Mecca. On the road, he encounters a Hindu Brahman on his way to a temple, lying flat on the earth and inching forward via prostrating himself. Impressed by the intensity of such physical and spiritual devotion, the Muslim traveler removes his shoes and continues barefoot to Mecca. The lesson is to open one’s mind and be humble.
(6) Influenced by Sufism and the Bhakti movement, Akbar valued rational thought over religious orthodoxy. By ending the Jizya Tax (historically levied by Muslim states on non-Muslim citizens) and memploying Hindus in high ranking jobs at court, he sought to secure their loyalty while also diminishing the power of rigid Islamic clerics. He built the Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) in Fatehpur Sikri to host debates between Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, and Zoroastrian theologians and philosophers, later promoting a moral code known as Din-i-Ilahi (Divine Faith).
(7) Known for his liberal views and engaging in debates with Hindu, Jain, and Jesuit scholars, Jahangir took the unprecedented step in 1606 of executing Sikh Guru Arjan Dev whose call for universal equality challenged the caste system of orthodox Hindu priests, the fanaticism of Islamic clerics of the extremist Naqshbandi sect, and the emperor himself who was fighting a rebellion by his son, Prince Khusrau.
Aurangzeb, the son of Shah Jahan and grandson of Jahangir, abandoned the Mughal policy of religious tolerance altogether by imposing Sharia law (Islamic law), tearing down thousands of temples, and reimposing a punitive tax on Hindus.
(8) Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings has a complicated history! It was one of many stolen in 1739 by Persian ruler Nadir Shah who sacked Delhi, looted the Mughal library, and brought loose paintings back to Iran. When the Persian Qajar dynasty declined (late 19th/early 20th century) the paintings were taken from the Royal Library in Teheran and sold to the Russian Imperial collection of Tsar Nicholas II. While most of the 98 surviving folios remain in St. Petersburg, several pages, including this one, were sold again on the global art market in the early 20th century and are now with institutions like the National Museum of Asian Art , Washington, D.C. but retain the "St. Petersburg" name to identify their historical origin.
On the other hand, the provenance of A Prince, Perhaps Parviz, with a Female Companion and Attendants (see first image below), is less convoluted; it traces from a private collection through Sotheby’s London (2023) before acquisition by the VMFA.
(9) The “paradisal garden,” a symmetrical walled-in Persian garden with water channels, flowers, and fruit trees, comes from the word pairidaeza or paradise, and is said to serve as a peaceful and harmonious heaven on earth!
(10) Mined in India’s southern region, the Koh-i-Noor Diamond, which was mounted on Shah Jahan’s famous Peacock Throne, was seized by Persian ruler Nadir Shah during his 1739 invasion of Delhi. When Shah was killed by his men, the diamond was taken by Afghanistan’s Durrani dynasty before being surrendered in 1813 back to India by Shah Shuja to Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh. After the British defeat of the Sikh Empire, the East India Company forced the young Maharaja Duleep Singh to sign the Treaty of Lahore in 1849 which officially surrendered the diamond to Queen Victoria (along with the famous Timur Ruby). Since then, it has remained in the Tower of London as part of the British Crown Jewels. The governments of Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Pakistan have all claimed ownership but the British government has rejected their claims, insisting the gem was obtained legally despite evidence to the contrary!
The Peacock Throne was built for Shah Jahan and placed in the Diwan-i-Khas at Delhi’s Red Fort. Completed in 1635, it was made of gold and precious stones, including the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond and other diamonds, the Akbar Shah and Shah. It took seven years to complete and was named for the two jewel-studded peacocks above its canopy. Even by Golden Age Mughal standards, it was extravagant, costing twice as much as the construction of the Taj Mahal! It was seized by Nadir Shah during his 1739 invasion and looting of Delhi and taken to Iran. After Shah’s death, the throne disappeared. It was probably dismantled and the stones stolen, many of which ended up as part of the Persian Crown Jewels and, later, the British Crown Jewels, after Britain's colonial expansion to the region.
The jewels are not even the most egregious theft! After the 1857 Delhi Mutiny, many precious Mughal artifacts were “acquired” by looting soldiers and administrators of the East India Company. The nephrite jade Wine Cup of Shah Jahan (with the ram’s head and paisley shape), was removed from the Red Fort, shipped to England, changed hands many times, and ended up at the V&A.
Ludi Joseph
Richmond, VA
August 13, 2026
Images from exhibit
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| A Prince, Perhaps Parviz, with a Female Companion and Attendants, VMFA |
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A Muslim Pilgrim Learns a Lesson in Piety from a Brahman, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC |
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| The Giant Zumurrud Shah Flees with his Army by flying away on Urns sent by Sorcerers, MAK Vienna |
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| Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings, St. Petersburg Album, National Museum of Asian Art, WDC |
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| Turkey Cock by Ustad Mansur, V&A |
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| Akbar Being Entertained by His Foster Brother Azim Khan at Dibalpur, by Jagan, Sur Das, Madhav, V&A |
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| Balarama Kills Dhenukasura, from a Persian translation of the Harivamsha, Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Jeweled Thumb Ring, al-Thani Collection, Qatar |
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| Jeweled Thumb Ring, al-Thani Collection, Qatar |
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| Pendant: Nephrite Jade, Rubies, Emeralds, Gold, V&A |
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| Huqqa Base, Glass, Gold Paint, VMFA |
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| Jeweled Scabbard, Gold, Rubies, Diamonds, Emeralds, Ivory, Agate, al-Sabah, Kuwait |
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| Sufi-inspired Tiles from Lahore Mosque |
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| Sufi Dervish Horn for Wine, Alms, Iran-Zamin Collection |
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| Casket, Gujarat. Teak, Mother-of-Pearl, Lac, Brass, V&A |
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| Water Chute, Marble, al-Sabah |
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| Floor Spread with Poppy Design, Cotton, dyes, possibly Burhanpur, V&A |
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| Carpet, Cotton Warp, Cotton & Silk Weft, Wool Pile, al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait |
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| The Virgin of the Apocalypse, V&A |
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| Descent from the Cross,National Museum of Asian Art, WDC |
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| Spinel 249.3 carats carved with names of 6 rulers, Drilled Sapphire Bead 106.6 carats, Diamond Pendant 56.7 carats, al-Sabah, Kuwait |
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| Embroidered Wall Hanging, Cotton, Silk Embroidery, V&A |
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| Jali (Stone Screen), Marble, Probably Agra, V&A |
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| Balustrades from a Palace, Agra, Marble, al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait |
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| Box and Cover, Jade, Silver. V&A |
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| Priming Flask, Jade, Enamel to dispense gunpowder for matchlock gun, V&A |
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| Punch Dagger, Hilt Gold Enamel, Steel Blade, al-Sabah, Kuwait |
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| Ring to support Huqqa, Gold Enamel, al-Sabah, Kuwait |
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| Sa’ida-ye-Gilani, Wine Cup of Jahangir, Nephrite Jade, Engraved with Persian Verses & Calligraphy, V&A |
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| Wine Cup, Jahangir, Rock Crystal, Rubies, Emeralds, Gold Kundan, al-Sabah |
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| Wine Cup of Shah Jahan, Nephrite Jade, Gourd- Shaped, Goat Head, Lotus Pedestal, V&A |
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| Ablution Vessel (or Lota), Calligraphic Verses on Exterior, Qu’ranic on Interior, Jahangir, V&A |
