[547] Photographs of this palace are now common, and can be obtained anywhere; and recently Lieut. Cole’s ‘Report on Buildings in the Neighbourhood of Agra’ supplies some very interesting new ones with plans, from which the dimensions in the text are quoted.
[548] No plan or section of this tomb has ever, so far as I know, been published, though it has been in our possession for nearly a century. Those here given are from my own measurements, and, though they may be correct as far as they go, are not so detailed as those of such a monument ought to be, and would have been, had it been in the hands of any other European nation.
[549] The diagram is probably sufficient to explain the text, but must not be taken as pretending to be a correct architectural drawing. There were parts, such as the height of the lower dome and upper angle kiosks, I had no means of measuring, and after all, I was merely making memoranda for my own satisfaction.
[550] After the above was written, and the diagram drawn ([Woodcut No. 334]), I was not a little pleased to find the following entry in Mr. Finch’s journal. He resided in Agra for some years, and visited the tomb for the last time apparently in 1609, and after describing most faithfully all its peculiarities up to the upper floor, as it now stands, adds: “At my last sight thereof there was only overhead a rich tent with a Semaine over the tomb. But it is to be inarched over with the most curious white and speckled marble, and to be seeled all within with pure sheet gold richly inwrought.”—‘Purchas, his Pilgrims,’ vol. i. p. 440.
[551] Although the fact seems hardly now to be doubted, no very direct evidence has yet been adduced to prove that it was to foreign—Florentine—artists that the Indians owe the art of inlaying in precious stones generally known as work in “pietro duro.” Austin or Augustin de Bordeaux, is the only European artist whose name can positively be identified with any works of the class. He certainly was employed by Shah Jehan at Delhi, and executed that mosaic of Orpheus or Apollo playing to the beasts, after Raphael’s picture, which once adorned the throne there, and is now in the Indian Museum at South Kensington.
It is, however, hardly to be expected that natives should record the names of those who surpassed them in their own arts; and needy Italian adventurers were even less likely to have an opportunity of recording the works they executed in a strange and foreign country. Had any Italian who lived at the courts of Jehangir or Shah Jehan written a book, he might have recorded the artistic prowess of his countrymen, but none such, so far as I am aware, has yet seen light.
The internal evidence, however, seems complete. Up to the erection of the gates to Akbar’s tomb at Secundra in the first ten years of Jehangir’s reign, A.D. 1605-1615, we have infinite mosaics of coloured marble, but no specimen of “inlay.” In Eti-mad-Doulah’s tomb, A.D. 1615-1628, we have both systems in great perfection. In the Taje and palaces at Agra and Delhi, built by Shah Jehan, A.D. 1628-1668, the mosaic has disappeared, being entirely supplanted by the “inlay.” It was just before that time that the system of inlaying called “pietro duro” was invented, and became the rage at Florence and, in fact, all throughout Europe; and we know that during the reign of the two last-named monarchs many Italian artists were in their service quite capable of giving instruction in the new art.
[552] Something of the same sort occurred when the Turks occupied Constantinople. They adapted the architecture of the Christians to their own purposes, but without copying. Vide ante, vol. ii. p. 528, et seqq.
[553] The great bath was torn up by the Marquis of Hastings with the intention of presenting it to George IV., an intention apparently never carried out; but it is difficult to ascertain the facts now, as the whole of the marble flooring with what remained of the bath was sold by auction by Lord William Bentinck, and fetched probably 1 per cent. of its original cost; but it helped to eke out the revenues of India in a manner most congenial to the spirit of its governors.
[554] Since the appointment of Sir John Strachey, the present enlightened Governor of the North West Provinces, I understand that this state of affairs is entirely altered. Both care and money are now expended liberally for the protection and maintenance of such old buildings that remain in the province.