Indian Company School Pietra Dura Ornament on Cenotaph Screen, Taj Mahal, Agra

An original early 19th-century watercolour painting – Indian Company School, Pietra Dura Ornament on Cenotaph Screen, Taj Mahal, Agra.

A beautiful Indian Company painting showing precious stone ornamentation inlaid into the white marble at the Taj Mahal mausoleum.

This specific floral motif features on the delicate jali screen surrounding the most sacred part of the mausoleum: the cenotaphs of the Emperor Shah Jahan (d.1666) and that of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal (d.1632), for whom Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal. The actual tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal are in a chamber directly beneath their cenotaphs.

Flowers were central to the decorative scheme of the Taj Mahal because they symbolised the verdant flora of the Paradise that Mumtaz Mahal would find herself after her death. The Italian 'pietra dura' (hard stone) technique of ornamentation was adapted into the local Mughal style and came to be known as 'parchin kari', meaning 'driven in'. To complete the designs, semi-precious stones such as lapis-lazuli, agate, bloodstone, carnelian, jade and quartz were used alongside clay-slate, variegated yellow limestone and marble.

This painting is a fine example of an Indian Company painting, produced for Western (especially British) patrons in India in the 19th century, many of whom were working for the East India Company. It displays the striking hybrid techniques which led to the categorisation of the ‘Company’ style as a School. While incorporating traditional elements from Rajput and Mughal painting, they were given a more 'western' appearance through their use of perspective and rounded modelling, as opposed to the more decorative, 'flatter' styles that had gone before.

In watercolour with touches of opaque pigment on cream wove paper, with hand drawn black border.

There is a faint inscription in Persian script on the verso.