A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s6.32

c19.s6.32

‘A third kind of tiles is found on buildings of the eighteenth century, such as the mosque of Muhammad Amīn at Lahore (beginning eighteenth century) and the mosque of Zakariya Khan near Lahore. The founder of the latter was a viceroy of the Punjab from A. D. 1717 to 1738. It is strange to find the same type combined with *Kāshī* work on the tomb of Asaf Khan at Shahdara as early as A. D. 1634. The tiles of this class are square. They form, consequently, not a tile-mosaic as the two earlier types, in which each separate piece has its own shape and colour, but are similar to the tiles known in Europe, from where presumably they were introduced into India. The colours are faint as compared to [*sic*] those of the *Kāshī* tiles, pale green, blue and yellow being the most prominent. In one case, the tomb of Sharf-un-nissa, known as the cypress tomb (*Sarvvālī maqbara*), not far from Bēgampura near Lahore, we find, besides *Kāshī* work on the lower part of the walls, square blue and white tiles of a type well known in the west of Europe. This building also would seem to belong to the eighteenth century.