[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911) › c19.s5.8 # A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s5.8 A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s5.8 - **Language:** English ### [c19.s5.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5.8) 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.) - [Previous: c19.s5.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5.7) - [Next: c19.s5.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5.11) - [Up: c19.s5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5) ## Linked texts (1) - [Taj Mahal](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.monument.taj-mahal) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.smith-1911.c19.s5.8) · Pramāṇa