2-756-625 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Indian marble inlay, (1898). 'Figs 1 to 9: Marble marquetry from the mausoleums of the Shah Jehan and the Begum Mumtaz-i-Mahal...It is to the [17th century] that the marble-marquetries from the Mogul tombs at Agra belong...These artistically furnished mausoleums were built with white marble, whilst all prominent architectural parts of the structure were ornamented with manifold colored stones, such as jasper, heliotrope, chalcedony, agate etc. Every curved line, every closed bud and opening flower we find represented with a sweet regard to the beauties of nature and besides this all is in thorough harmony with those venerable mosaic technics [techniques]'. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal are buried in the Taj Mahal at Agra, India, which Shah Jahan commissioned in 1632. Plate 16a from "The Historic Styles of Ornament" translated from the German of H. Dolmetsch. [B.T. Batford, London, 1898]