The Mughal Empire once stretched from Kabul in the northwest almost all the way to the tip of southern India. Eastward expansion began in 1526, when the vast Delhi Sultanate, comprising much of modern India, was invaded and conquered by Prince Babur, a descendant of both Genghis Khan and the Turko-Mongol conqueror Timur. Thus began an age of war and bloodshed across the lands of the Indian subcontinent, but also an era of cultural melding, between the decorative arts traditions of Muslims and Hindus.
The art of the Mughal Empire is the subject of an extensive exhibition being mounted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, set to open on November 9. The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture, and Opulence explores the relatively brief period, from about 1560 to 1660, of cultural efflorescence as the craft traditions of the Persian/Iranian occupiers and Indian natives melded to create the unique decorative style of the Mughal court. With a rich and varied legacy of regional craft traditions, Indian artisans of Gujarat (known for inlaid wooden boxes) and Hindustan (known for gem-set gold wares) adopted the arabesques, calligraphy, and other traditional motifs of their Islamic occupiers. The opulent and unparalleled pieces produced in this era were popular not only within the Empire, but in Europe as well.
Among the objects on view are princely garments, jewel-encrusted vessels, and extraordinary objects made for the Mughal emperors themselves. A swoon-worthy example is the carved white jade cup made for the late Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, and later owned by Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie, likely the most prolific British collector of Mughal coins and wares. Without the keen (and perhaps raven-like) eye of Colonel Guthrie, whose collection was transferred to the V&A in 1879, the museum’s collection of Mughal goods would not be nearly what it is today. Guthrie was a member of the Bengal Engineers regiment, which maintained a presence in India for centuries, first under the British East India Company, and subsequently under the Raj. Though we may think of the Mughal Empire as a denizen of the far-off past, the empire of Babur’s descendants collided violently with the colonial rule that shaped modern India.
It feels fitting that the museum named after the Empress of India should mount a tribute to the arts and culture of the Mughal Empire at a time when so much British-held art is being reevaluated. The close relationship between Mughal artists and European collectors paints an uneasy yet fascinating picture through which visitors to the exhibition can come to understand economies of vernacular craft in times of political regime change. In the 1500s the artists of the Indian subcontinent were entranced by European fashions and culture. A late sixteenth-century Mughal artist’s portrait of a European in the exhibition provides a compelling example of this dynamic. The attraction was mutual, and by the 1800s European aristocrats were purchasing Mughal art with fervor. But, during the period of British rule, Mughal art traditions faded away with the fallen empire, and Indian art traditions were suppressed in favor of Anglicization.
Court Workshops, 1657. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Perhaps this is partly why the Mughal Empire feels so distant today to a Western audience, and furthermore why the arts of its most vibrant period deserve such a showcase, which is enhanced by the expert knowledge and deep investigative work of the curators of Asian art at the V&A. “This is the first exhibition to reveal the international art and culture of the Mughal court,” says curator Susan Stronge. “Hindustani artists, Iranian masters . . . came together in the imperial workshops to create a new, hybrid art.”
At the center of it all, on display in the UK for the first time, is the remarkable Ames carpet (seen here), on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Woven in northern India around the turn of the seventeenth century, this exquisite carpet was produced in the Mughal imperial courts and features imagery of animals, people, and structures borrowed from Iranian manuscript illustrations. In its extraordinary detail (one hundred knots to a square centimeter), it is perhaps the most evocative and awe-inspiring example of the overlooked mastery of the craftsmen of the Mughal Empire.
The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture, and Opulence • Victoria and Albert Museum, London •November 9 to May 5, 2025 • vam.ac.uk
