The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall.
Fatehpur Sikri is a town in the Agra District of Uttar Pradesh, India. Situated 35.7 kilometres (22.2 mi) from the district headquarters of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri itself was founded as the capital of the Mughal Empire in 1571 by Emperor Akbar, serving this role from 1571 to 1585, when Akbar abandoned it due to a campaign in Punjab and was later completely abandoned in 1610.
Agra is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about 230 kilometres (140 mi) south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the fourth-most populous city in Uttar Pradesh and twenty-third most populous city in India.
Mumtaz Mahal was the empress consort of Mughal Empire from 1628 to 1631 as the chief consort of the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of the Wonders of the World, was commissioned by her husband to act as her tomb.
Mandu or Mandavgad is an ancient city in the present-day Mandav area of the Dhar district. It is located in the Malwa and Nimar region of western Madhya Pradesh, India, at 35 km from Dhar city. In the 11th century, Mandu was the sub division of the Tarangagadh or Taranga kingdom. This fortress town on a rocky outcrop about 100 km (62 mi) from Indore is celebrated for its architecture.
Humayun's tomb is the tomb of Mughal emperor, Mirza Nasir al-Din Muhammad commonly known as Humayun situated in Delhi, India. The tomb was commissioned by Humayun's first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum under her patronage in 1558, and designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas and his son, Sayyid Muhammad, Persian architects chosen by her. It was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent, and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, close to the Dina-panah Citadel, also known as Purana Qila, that Humayun found in 1538. It was also the first structure to use red sandstone at such a scale. The tomb was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and since then has undergone extensive restoration work, which is complete. Besides the main tomb enclosure of Humayun, several smaller monuments dot the pathway leading up to it, from the main entrance in the West, including one that even pre-dates the main tomb itself, by twenty years; it is the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niazi, an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri's court of the Suri dynasty, who fought against the Mughals, constructed in 1547 CE.
The tradition and style of garden design represented by Persian gardens or Iranian gardens is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in the Achaemenid Empire. The paradise garden, an example of Persian garden, has influenced the design of gardens from Andalusia to India and beyond. The gardens of the Alhambra show the influence of Persian garden philosophy and style in a Moorish palace scale, from the era of al-Andalus in Spain. Humayun's Tomb and the Taj Mahal have some of the largest Persian gardens in the world, from the era of the Mughal Empire in India.
Mughal Gardens are a type of garden built by the Mughals. This style was influenced by the Persian gardens particularly the Charbagh structure, which is intended to create a representation of an earthly utopia in which humans co-exist in perfect harmony with all elements of nature.
Mughal architecture is the type of Indo-Islamic architecture developed by the Mughals in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries throughout the ever-changing extent of their empire in the Indian subcontinent. It developed from the architectural styles of earlier Muslim dynasties in India and from Iranian and Central Asian architectural traditions, particularly Timurid architecture. It also further incorporated and syncretized influences from wider Indian architecture, especially during the reign of Akbar. Mughal buildings have a uniform pattern of structure and character, including large bulbous domes, slender minarets at the corners, massive halls, large vaulted gateways, and delicate ornamentation; examples of the style can be found in modern-day Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
A charbagh or chaharbagh is a Persian and Indo-Persian quadrilateral garden with a layout comprising four gardens traditionally separated by waterways, together representing the four gardens and four rivers of Paradise mentioned in the Quran. The chaharbagh may also be divided by walkways instead of flowing water. Such gardens are found in countries throughout West Asia, South Asia, North Africa and the former al-Andalus. A famous example of charbagh is the charbagh of the Taj Mahal in India.
Ebba Koch is an Austrian art and architectural historian, who defines and discusses cultural issues of interest to political, social and economic historians. Presently she is a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria and a senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She completed her doctorate in philosophy and her Habilitation at Vienna University.
The Taj Mahal represents the finest and most sophisticated example of Indo-Islamic architecture. Its origins lie in the moving circumstances of its commission and the culture and history of an Islamic Mughal empire's rule of large parts of India. The distraught Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the project upon the death of one of his favorite wives Mumtaz Mahal.
Polignac is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France,
The Jama Mosque is a 17th-century congregational mosque located in the historic core of Agra, Uttar Pradesh. It was built by Jahanara Begum, the eldest daughter of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, during the latter's reign. It is the principal mosque in the city of Agra, and lies close to Agra Fort.
John Cochran or Cochrane was a Scottish portrait miniaturist, a stipple and line engraver and a painter of watercolours. Cochran exhibited his portraits at the Royal Academy between 1821 and 1823, and at the Suffolk Street Gallery from 1821 to 1827.
The Bijapur Fort is located in the Bijapur city in Bijapur District of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bijapur fort has a plethora of historical monuments of architectural importance built during the rule of Adil Shahi dynasty.
Thomas Shotter Boys (1803–1874) was an English watercolour painter and lithographer.
Samuel Austin, was an English water-colour painter.
Thomas Alfred Woolnoth (1785–1857) was an English engraver. He was known for his portraits of theatre people. He also painted, and engraved works of Correggio and Van Dyck. Woolnoth was engraver to Queen Victoria. His work was also included in Cadell and Davies Britannia depicta.
The Tomb of Aurangzeb is located in Khuldabad, Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, India. In notable contrast to other Mughal tombs, which are large monuments of Mughal architecture, including the Taj Mahal, at his own direction Aurangzeb is buried in an unmarked grave at the complex of the dargah or shrine of Sheikh Zainuddin.
