Mughal Inlay Art

Second revised, corrected and updated edition

This is study of the INLAY art as it developed in Mughal Architecture, from Humayun to Shah Jehan (c. AD 1535-1658) indigenously, and independent of any extraneous inspiration or influence, landmark examples whereof have been cited with illustrations (64 b&w and 16 colour plates). It is wrong to brand it: pietra-dura or pietre-dure which misnomer was pasted upon it by nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial historians who suffered by a sense of inherent superiority of European culture and art, and who could not believe that the Indian people, whom Macaulay fondly called ‘semi-savage’ could develop such a fine and exquisite art as this, which even the classical Greeks and the Romans, who also worked in marbles, could not do!