Antique Delhi, India Miniature Painting Mounted on Velvet of Humayun's Tomb

Make: India

Subject: Humayun's Tomb

Age:  19th Century

Construction: Watercolor on glass, mounted on velvet and framed

Dimensions:  7 3/4" Tall x 7 1/2" Wide x 1 1/4" Deep

Condition:  Excellent vintage condition. Please see photos. 

Details: Recently framed miniature 19th century souvenir painting from India. Simple angular antiqued-gold wood frame with gold wood fillet suspending frame glass above miniature painting mounted on deep aqua velvet. Miniature painting, oval in shape, measures 1 1/2'h x 1 7/8" and is covered with original 19th C slightly convex glass. Back of frame has kraft paper dust cover, with label from a frame shop in Fredericksburg, VA.   

Similar miniature paintings were popular souvenirs from India in the 19th century. They were often painted with watercolor-thin tempera on paper, ivory, or bone and covered with glass. Sometimes, they were mounted in gold or silver as a brooch upon the traveler's return.  Humayun's Tomb was built in the 1560's in Delhi, by Humayun's son, the great Emperor Akbar. Persian and Indian craftsmen worked together to build the garden-tomb, far grander than any tomb previously built in the Muslim world.  The tomb is the first of the grand dynastic mausoleums built in the Mughal style, leading up to the construction of the Taj Mahal 80 years later.