A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c18.85

c18.85

The style is essentially Persian, but with an undefinable difference of expression, and sharply distinguished from the fashions of Isfahan as well as those of Constantinople by the lavish use of white marble, supplemented by sumptuous decoration in *pietra dura* inlay and other enrichments. Coloured tiles were rarely used. Open-work tracery of incomparable beauty is a marked feature, and spacious grandeur of design is successfully combined with feminine elegance. It is, indeed, impossible to exaggerate descriptions of the magnificence of the Delhi palace, nor is there any need to insist on the unearthly loveliness of the Tāj, the noblest monument ever erected to man or woman :—