Bonhams Auction House, London, New Bond Street under the category of Islamic & Indian Art
The artwork by Ghulam Ali Khan shows beautiful marble inlay works on the walls of Diwan-i-Am in Red Fort,Delhi. The amazing art of Shah Jahan's court is shown by artists who made Mughal architecture great.They used a technique called “Pietra Dura” to put stones like lapis lazuli, jasper, jade and carnelian into polished marble.These stones were cut into pieces and fitted together perfectly to make colourful floral designs that looked like they were alive.The artists who worked with stones and the painters worked together to make the pillars and arches shine like jewels.They made the stone carvings look like they were inspired by the paintings of flowers and animals.In the given painting we can see inlay works done in an arched shape with geometric shapes, colourful floral patterns and very good craftsmanship.All of it is done while ensuring symmetry to the work.
This great art was shown in the Diwan-i-Am or the Hall of Public Audience which was the ceremonial part of the imperial palace.The emperor sat on his throne balcony. Talked to his people, gave justice and met foreign dignitaries in a very organised way.The hall was designed to show the emperor's power with “Pietra Dura or marble inlay” paneling behind the throne showing emperor's royalty and divinity. .This image was used to say that the emperor's justice was like a magic that could control the wildest animals and bring peace to his big empire.The Diwan-i-Am was not a place for meetings but a place that showed the Mughal rule was peaceful and fair. The perfection with which Ghulam Ali Khan depicted the marble inlay work in this painting, talks of his prowess at painting architecture to utmost details.
The wall in this painting once stood right behind the emperor’s throne in the Diwan-i-Am, the hall dedicated for public audience by Shah Jahan at Red Fort. Here, the artist Ghulam Ali Khan has depicted ‘parchin Kari’ on marble surface. It is a Mughal version of the inlay technique that had travelled all the way from Florence and found its grandest use a little earlier at the Taj Mahal. Stone cut thin, fitted into white marble so precisely the seams disappear, birds and flowering vines picked out in colour against black ground. Ghulam Ali Khan gave the same attention to paper that the original craftsmen gave to stone, tracing every panel along the arch, letting gold pick out the finer tracery near the top. This sheet belongs to a set of thirty-one he made in the early 1850s, just before 1857 mutiny, when soldiers pulled much of this inlay off the walls. Most of what Ghulam Ali Khan painted doesn’t exist in reality anymore.
