Ludi's Travels

“India’s Great Mughals” Exhibit Celebrates Creative Output, Spans a Century!

“India’s Great Mughals: Art, Power, and Opulence,” on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond (VMFA) — on the 500-year milestone of the Empire’s founding — offers valuable lessons in history and evidence of cross-cultural collaboration while celebrating the extraordinary creative output of the period. Before Richmond, the exhibit was in London and Hong Kong; it goes next to Nashville, Tennessee in early 2027, but (alas) not to India!

Expertly organized and curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (from where it draws most of its pieces), it draws also from the VMFA’s own compilation of South Asian art and from more than thirty other collections — among them, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. It includes more than two hundred artistic pieces in a wide range of material from paper to porcelain, cloth, wood, metal, ivory, and marble. And, best of all, it includes rarely shown paintings and illustrated manuscripts not seen for a generation.

At its peak, the Moghul Empire was one of the richest and most progressive in the world encompassing most of subcontinental India, and far outstripping in size and wealth the contemporary Islamic empires of the Safavids and Ottomans. 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 concentrates only on three emperors: Akbar (1556–1605), Jahangir (1605–27), and Shah Jahan (1628– 58) and applauds their creative and cultural brilliance.

The trio’s greatness derives not only from their patronage of art but also their openness towards other faiths and cultures. Although they are roughly contemporary with British monarchs Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, the Mughals were already a byword for luxury, magnificence, and power whereas England (at the time) had just begun to entertain dreams of empire.

The exhibition provides a timeline of the Mughals within historical reference points—e.g., their artistic golden age began decades before Jamestown (the first permanent English settlement in the New World) was even founded in Virginia. In 1607, two years after Jahangir ascended the throne, the Virginia Company established Jamestown and two years later, Englishman Captain William Hawkins arrived at Jahangir's court to negotiate a trade agreement on behalf of the East India Company.

Each room is filled with exceptional artwork, supported sometimes with multimedia narratives: sandstone jalis (stone screen windows), huqqa (water pipe) bases, ewers, chalices, and salvers made of bronze and copper, divination rings and braziers, manuscript pages illustrated with gold leaf from Akbar’s Kitabkhana (House of Books) with intricate calligraphy, mother of pearl cabinets, jeweled swords, scabbards, punch daggers, and natural history paintings (demonstrating the courts’ attention to science and reason), and marble balustrades with stone inlay. There is also spinel, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires including a red royal spinel inscribed with the names of six rulers, and a 110 carat Colombian emerald pendant carved with a flower motif — all once part of the emperor’s throne. There is so much to see that my favorite watercolors nearly got overlooked!

Cross-Cultural Influences

Trade in products, ideas, and people brought a wealth of influences into and out of the empire which thrived in the cosmopolitan courts and a multiethnic population. It was an unprecedented 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 particular note is the hybrid art created in court workshops by Iranian and Hindustani artists and craftsmen and explores the influence of European art brought by Christian missionaries, foreign ambassadors, and merchants 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

Under Akbar’s rule, religious tolerance was the norm. The three emperors embraced religious complexity and did not expect the Hindu population to convert to Islam. In fact, they were attracted to Hindu mythology and mystics. In a painting entitled A Muslim Pilgrim Learns a Lesson in Piety from a Brahman, the pilgrim walks through an Indian landscape where he encounters a Hindu lying in the road and learns a lesson in spiritual humility.

The Mughals were also attracted to the mystic Islamic Sufi movement represented here by a Sufi dervish’s drinking horn and Sufi-inscribed tiles from a now-vanished mosque in Lahore.

In the 1680s, to promote unity and reduce division, Akbar invented his own religion, Din-I Ilahi, by adopting key elements of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism. It centered on kindness and ethical codes but did not catch on.

Religious tolerance under Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan shifted gradually from active pluralism 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.

Akbar championed the philosophy of Sulh-i-Kul (universal peace/tolerance), treating all religious communities as equals under the state. He abolished the discriminatory jizya tax on non-Muslims in 1564 as well as pilgrim taxes. He began an Interfaith Dialogue at the Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) in Fatehpur Sikri to host debates between Muslims, Hindus, Parsis, Jains, and Christians and created the Din-i Ilahi (Divine Faith), an ethical system blending various religious teachings.

Jahangir maintained his father's broad framework of religious freedom while allowing public festival celebrations and participation in the administration by high ranking Hindus. He executed Sikh Guru Arjan Dev for political reasons and to appease Muslim theologians. But he kept an open court policy and continued to welcome Jesuit priests, Hindu ascetics, and Jain scholars to court for debates and discussions.

Under Shah Jahan there was a visible shift towards a more orthodox Islamic tone. Religious tolerance remained the official baseline, Hindu nobles still held high military and administrative ranks, and major Hindu pilgrimages continued unhindered. But he banned the construction of new major temples in contested areas and forbade mixed marriages.

Akbar

Akbar introduced administrative structures that lasted long into the future and combined military might with a love of art and culture that his successors would share. The court painting style he began combines closely observed reality with fantasy.

In the 1570s, he commissioned the Hamza-Nama (Book of Hamza) — 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 forces. These works demonstrate the new and distinctively Mughal style of painting that combined Safavid Iranian conventions with the very different pictorial traditions of local Hindu and Muslim artists.

The focus on both patrons and artisans is evident alongside the significance of Karkhanas (ateliers, workshops) and Kitabkhanas (libraries) — all the more important given the fact that Akbar could neither read nor write despite being a keen patron of the arts and 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.

To rule a multi-ethnic empire, Akbar actively commissioned artworks connecting his Persian origin to local Hindu traditions. For example, a manuscript of the Persian translation of the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic, was produced during his reign, with a seal indicating that this piece had once been kept in Akbar’s mother’s library. At the same time, European styles, too, were absorbed into court art via prints and artworks brought by Christian missionaries, foreign ambassadors, and merchants.

Jahangir

Inheriting a wealthy and stable kingdom, Jahangir continued his father’s legacy of efficient administration and artistic patronage, encouraging his artists to innovate and refine.

The themes of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism are further expanded under him. The most elaborate section of the exhibition is dedicated to Jahangir’s life at court and his interest in nature. His artists collaborated with Europeans: for instance, there is a painting of Jahangir on a throne designed for him by a goldsmith from Bordeaux, and with the Flemish by botanical engravings and examples of the way these were adapted in the Mughal world to serve decorative purposes. Relations with China are highlighted by a Mughal collection of white, blue, and imperial yellow porcelain, and with the Safavid and Armenian world by decorative metal objects of copper and bronze.

According to the exhibit’s 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.’”

Moghul art absorbed influences from Persia to Renaissance Europe. Portuguese merchants are depicted visiting the court and, mysteriously, speaking with angels as court artists try to make sense of their Christian religion! Cultural exchanges went both ways. A Mughal round shield, covered in mother of pearl patterns and pictures — which entered the collection of the Medici family in the 1590s — is on display, on loan from the Bargello Museum in Florence.

Shah Jahan

Under Shah Jahan, the empire’s territories were expanded and its wealth greatly increased. He had a passion for building, including, the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, and his best known construction, the Taj Mahal, perhaps India’s most famous monument.

Accompanied by a short video clip of the Taj Mahal, the exhibition showcases architectural components to demonstrate construction designs during his reign, including inlaid marble, painted tiles, and a pierced marble screen mounted on a gallery wall.

Inspired by the Taj Mahal, floral motifs replaced other traditional 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 untouched by 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 Khusrow:

“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 Shah Jahan section of the exhibition.

At the peak of Shah Jahan’s reign, the concept of the cultivated paradisal garden 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.

Provenance and Sourcing

Given the near erasure of Mughal history in Indian school textbooks and the vilification of the country’s Muslim rulers, it is disappointing — but unsurprising — that this exhibition will not be seen in India. 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 thievery. The principal American museums have done a much better job of identifying and returning stolen art than the U.K!

Also striking is that none of these outstanding samples of Mughal culture came from South Asia whose museums have a surfeit of them, as I recall! With the exception of some relatively new Middle Eastern collections (Kuwait, Qatar), all the exhibits here have been sourced — entirely — from European and North American institutions!

However, such quibbles (legit though they may be) do not detract from or diminish the show which captures and cultivates the interest of those encountering Mughals for the first time while also providing audiences (more familiar with Mughal history) a welcome opportunity to enjoy — first-hand, at leisure, and in one location — a landmark collection of exhibits that are otherwise dispersed around the world and are rarely so well displayed. Thank you, VMFA!

Cultural Appropriation

The multiculturalism of the exhibit also exposes the idea of cultural appropriation in art and religion as nonsensical! The Mughal court appropriated anything and everything, then improved, enhanced, and experimented with it! (2)

Muslim emperors in India employed Muslim and Hindu craftsmen side by side, acquired Colombian emeralds from Portuguese traders, hired French jewellers, bought Chinese porcelain, and received gifts and tributes black lacquer boxes from Japan.

One of the fun paintings is of a turkey, sent from North America to the Mughal court along with other “exotic” animals. A trumpeting elephant was a common everyday sight for the Indian Moghuls, not so much a gobbling turkey!

Notes

(1) Later Moghuls, such as Aurangzeb, the son of Shah Jahan, abandoned tolerance in favor of religious persecution and forced conversions. The Naqshbandi order, known for its strict adherence to Islamic revivalism and sharia law, made an appearance at the tail end of Shah Jahan’s reign.

(2) Buddhism kept changing and being influenced by local cultures, the further east it travelled. It’s natural for religions to evolve but we don’t call that cultural appropriation!

Ludi Joseph

Richmond, VA

August 10, 2026