Paintings of extraordinary beauty and variety were made for the many royal courts of India during a golden age that unfolded in the sixteenth century and lasted well into the British period. In India, two artistic traditions converged. The indigenous Rajput culture produced exuberant, vibrantly colored, boldly patterned illustrations of Hindu myths and epics. The entirely different art of the Islamic Mughal invaders, subtle and naturalistic, mainly presented elegant scenes of court life and history. From the cross-fertilization of these two traditions, a multiplicity of highly original painting styles blossomed and flourished. While works of art originating in Mughal and Rajput courts are often treated separately, in this book paintings made in the major Mughal, Deccani, Rajput, and Pahari workshops are presented together, chronologically. Eighty-three exceptionally fine paintings are reproduced in full color. Each is accompanied by a paragraph explaining the subject illustrated and pointing out particular qualities of style. Interrelations between the various court traditions are explored in the essay, a lucid and comprehensive overview of the development of Indian painting. The author vividly describes the vicissitudes of political power, royal personality, and the movement of artists from place to place that constituted the historical and social context in which each regional court evolved its distinctive artistic vocabulary. The rich, remarkable court paintings of India are splendidly offered to the reader's eye and mind in this book, which also includes a map, enlarged detail photographs, and a selected bibliography.

Dress of the eighteenth century is not without anachronisms and exoticisms of its own, but that singular, changing, revolutionizing century has become an icon in the history of fashion.

Silver had long been associated with ceremony and achievement, but during the nineteenth century the preponderance of presentation vessels became even greater.

The last quarter of the century witnessed the true vindication of watercolor, not merely in popularity but in its nature—as a fluid and transparent medium.

By the eighteenth century, color, not line, became dominant as pastels moved aesthetically closer to painting.

The innovations in corset construction allowed for more pressure to be placed on the waistline than had been possible in the eighteenth century.

The fascination with perspective and acute foreshortening, classical architecture, and the depiction of space remained strong among Milanese painters well into the sixteenth century.

The use of architectural forms and motifs previously found only in furniture was characteristic of textiles designed in the various revival styles of the nineteenth century.

Although the iconic silhouette of the eighteenth century is that of the rectangularly panniered, conically corseted court dress, a simpler line of dress launched the era.