A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s5: Section VI. Inlay and Mosaic
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s5
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Section VI. Inlay and Mosaic
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The device for breaking the monotony of a wide wall surface by inserting broad bands of white marble, as employed in the fourteenth century on the tomb of Tughlak Shah (*ante*, Fig. 234), and a few years earlier on Alā-ud-dīn's gateway (*ante*, Fig. 233), was commonly used in the Musalman art of Central Asia, Syria, and Egypt, and was freely adopted for Christian buildings in Italy. In Akbar's time this early severe form of decoration was supplemented by mosaics made up after the Roman and Byzantine fashion from small tesserae, which were combined in Persian geometrical patterns. The great mosque at Fathpur-Sīkrī offers many examples, as for instance the inner architrave of the *mihrāb* in Plate C. Sometimes the effect was enhanced by the insertion of little bits of blue or green enamel.
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A great innovation was effected by the introduction of the form of inlay known technically by the Italian name of *pietra dura*, which is composed of hard precious or semi-precious stones, such as onyx, jasper, cornelian, &c., cut into thin slices and neatly bedded in sockets prepared in the marble. This process, of which the best comparatively small specimens are to be seen at Florence, is capable of producing charming decorative effects when executed by capable workmen. In India, where expense was disregarded, it was applied to buildings on an enormous scale.
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The bold floral mosaics made of marble or red sandstone which appear on the south gateway of Akbar's tomb (1605–12) are nearly equivalent in effect to *pietra dura* work, but are not identical with it.¹ The Mughal kings evidently loved flowers, which are admirably treated in all forms of art patronized by them.
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¹ ^1 E. W. Smith, *Akbar's Tomb*, Pl. XLI, XLII.
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The earliest Indian example of true *pietra dura*, according to Major Cole, is said to be that in the *Gol Mandal*, a domed pavilion in the small Jagmandir palace, at Udaipur in Rājputāna, built in or about 1623 for Prince Khurram, afterwards the Emperor Shahjahān, while he was an exile from his father's court.
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The process is very extensively employed on the approximately contemporary mausoleum of Itimād-ud-daula near Agra, erected by his daughter Nūrjahān after her father's death in a. d. 1621. The general effect of the *pietra dura* decoration is well shown (so far as it can be without colour) in Plate CVI, which represents one of the white marble turrets at the corners of the tomb. The older style of marble mosaic is seen in the lower panels.
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Shahjahān (1627–58) wholly abandoned mosaic in favour of *pietra dura*, which probably he learned to admire while residing in the Jagmandir palace at Udaipur before his accession. The decoration is applied so lavishly in the Tāj and the palaces of Agra and Delhi that volumes might be filled with reproductions of the designs, which are familiar to most people from modern copies. One plate will be enough to show their character (Plate CVII). They are remarkable for their restraint and good taste, and are superior to the similar work in the Delhi palace.
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The Florentine *pietra dura* inlay, a revival of the ancient Roman *opus sectile*, first appears, according to Major Cole, in the Fabbrica Ducale built by Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1558. The earliest certain Indian examples being considerably later in date and identical in technique, a strong presumption arises that the art must have been introduced into India from Italy. There is no doubt that the Mughal sovereigns freely entertained artists from Europe as well as from most parts of Asia. The presumption is not rebutted by the obvious fact that the designs of the Mughal work are essentially Asiatic, and in the main Persian, because the ordinary Indian practice is to transpose foreign importations, so to speak, into an Indian key. Persian designs were readily assimilated, but in the seventeenth century nobody in India cared much for outlandish European forms, or wanted to have them. Now, of course, things are different, and European forms are fashionable because the government is English. If Mr. Marshall was correctly informed when he wrote some years ago that '*pietra dura* work in a rougher and earlier stage than was hitherto known' had been discovered in the ruins of the Khaljī mausoleum at Māndū in Central India, the presumption of Italian origin would no longer hold good, because Mahmūd Khaljī, in whose honour the mausoleum seems to have been erected, died in Plate CVII. *Pietra dura* inlay on the cenotaph of the Tāj. (Plate, *J. Ind. Art*, vol. i, p. 76.)
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1475.¹ But the details given in an earlier report suggest that the remains found were those of marble mosaic, not of *pietra dura* inlay. As the evidence at present stands, I continue to believe in the Italian origin of Indian *pietra dura* work, so far as the technique is concerned.²
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¹ *Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, 1904–5, p. 5.
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² Ibid., 1903–4, p. 38. I cannot find any distinct record of the finding of fragments of *pietra dura* at Māndū.
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The decline and fall of the Mughal empire during the eighteenth century necessarily involved the rapid decay of the arts which had ministered to the splendour of the imperial court. Among other arts that of producing *pietra dura* inlay had been almost forgotten until about 1830, when Dr. Murray, Inspector-General of Hospitals, induced the craftsmen to revive it for commercial purposes. Since that time it has been practised sufficiently to provide a constant supply of pretty trifles for European tourists and visitors, but nobody dreams of decorating a building in the fashion which appealed to Shahjahān the Magnificent. The plaques and other inlaid objects now made at Agra are too familiar to need illustration. A selection of first-class specimens is figured in *Indian Art at Delhi*, Plate 17—A.
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Inlay with mother-of-pearl occurs at Salīm Chishtī's tomb, Fathpur Sīkrī, and elsewhere. Glass mosaics are to be seen in several 'Shīsh Mahalls', or 'glass chambers', at Udaipur, Ambēr, Agra, Lahore, and other places. Those in the ceiling of the Shīsh Mahall, Lahore, are said to be particularly well done. But such meretricious bedizenment certainly is not fine art, and need not be further discussed.