Mughal Love

This blog is simply about remembering the enriched culture and history of India long before it was divided into pakistan and bangladesh. The Mughal Empire was the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent between the mid-16th century and the early 18th century
Would love to have one!!! Musician with cymbals. Lampas-woven silk, India, ca. 1600 “This textile, just over two meters tall, was presumably woven in one of the Great Mughal’s studios to be sewn together with similar pieces to decorate a princely tent. A highly Indian niche encloses a musician who can be seen from both the front and the side. He wears a typical Mughal turban, two shawls, and a loincloth (dhoti). Very much alive yet statue-like, he must have made a fantastic impression alongside other figures. There are two related tent panels (qanat), one with an elegant courtier in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and another with a female harem guard in the Khalili Collection in London. Both, however, are in rather poor condition. Making such large and complex figurative textiles without repeating the motif requires a true overview of the whole, and they were hardly surpassed anywhere in their day. The tent panel most likely comes from the Amber Palace in Jaipur.”

Would love to have one!!!

Musician with cymbals. Lampas-woven silk, India, ca. 1600

“This textile, just over two meters tall, was presumably woven in one of the Great Mughal’s studios to be sewn together with similar pieces to decorate a princely tent.

A highly Indian niche encloses a musician who can be seen from both the front and the side. He wears a typical Mughal turban, two shawls, and a loincloth (dhoti). Very much alive yet statue-like, he must have made a fantastic impression alongside other figures.

There are two related tent panels (qanat), one with an elegant courtier in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and another with a female harem guard in the Khalili Collection in London. Both, however, are in rather poor condition.

Making such large and complex figurative textiles without repeating the motif requires a true overview of the whole, and they were hardly surpassed anywhere in their day.

The tent panel most likely comes from the Amber Palace in Jaipur.”

17th Century Mughal dagger with ruby and emerald set gold hilt.

(via pimpingweapons)

Stunning Mughal earring

Stunning Mughal earring

shruti-bajaj:

Mirror Mirror on the wall

Ceiling, Sheesh Mahal, Amer Fort, Rajasthan

©Shruti Bajaj

This is beyond gorgeous!!

nativethoughts: Palace of Mirrors. Beautiful palace located in Lahore

nativethoughts:

Palace of Mirrors.

Beautiful palace located in Lahore

acaryadasa:

The Mughal Emperor Jahangir with Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

There are a number of paintings depicting Jahangir sitting under or besides a painting of the Virgin (as in the second painting). Click here for the full size of this image (and note the Jesuit dressed in black in the foreground).

Father Monserrate, one of the Jesuit missionaries at Akbar’s court, recounts the popularity of the Virgin Mary at the Mughal court, describing a scene not unlike the middle two painting (en passant condemning the Protestants who had were gaining in popularity in Europe at the time):

It was so widely reported amongst the Musalmans that the King had become a worshipper of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, that a certain noble, a relation of the King, secretly asked the officer in charge of the royal furniture for the beautiful picture of the Virgin which belonged to the King, and placed it (unknown to the King himself) on a bracket in the wall of the royal balcony at the side of the audience-chamber, where the King was wont to sit and show himself to the people and so to give audience to those who desired it. The aforementioned noble surrounded and draped the picture with the most beautiful hangings of cloth and gold and embroidered linen. For he though this would please the King. Nor was he mistaken: for the King warmly praised the idea, which also gave great pleasure to the priests, who perceived that non-Christians were worshipping and reverencing the picture, and—as if compelled by the unaided force of truth—were not denying adoration to the image of her whom the morning stars extol, and whose beauty amazes the Sun and Moon, (though some, who vainly claim to follow Christ and to be ministers of the Gospel, impudently abuse her, and are thus worse than the very Musalmans). [From: The Commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J. on his Journey to the Court of Akbar (Oxford, 1922), p. 176]

travellinganachronism:

Hunting Coat. 1650, India. Embroidered silk and satin.

This splendid coat was made for a man at the Mughal court in the first half of the 17th century. It is embroidered in fine chain stitch on a white satin ground, with images of flowers, trees, peacocks, lions and deer. The area around the neck is left free of embroidery, as a separate collar or tippet, probably of fur, would have been attached. Chain-stitch embroidery of this type is associated with professional, male embroiderers of the Gujarati Mochi community, and they were employed to embroider fine hangings and garments for the Mughal court, as well as for export to the West.
Source: V&A Museum.