This week, you need to click the links to see the pictures, please. Don’t miss out on the 1 metre high golden globe with over 51 thousand gemstones (at the bottom of the page)!
I wrote previously about the diamond Shah Abbas recognised when it was returned by refugee Uzbek princes in 1601; and the gorgeous spinel gifted by Abbas to Jahangir in 1621 (now in Kuwait). The current NPG exhibition on The Indian Portrait includes lots of images of Mughal emperors dripping with jewels and reminds me of another famous gem gift sent by Abbas to Jahangir.
This was a ‘ruby’ (or maybe another spinel?) worth one hundred thousand rupees. On the gem were engraved the names Sahib Kiran (Timur), Shah Rukh, Ulugh Beg and Abbas. Jahangir added his own name, and that of his father (Akbar); before sending the stone on as a gift to Prince Khurram (later to become Shah Jahan), when the latter conquered Dakhin. Shah Jahan had his own name engraved and, when the Peacock Throne was completed for him in 1634, it is said that that this gem was set in the jewelled recess intended for the cushion forming the seat of the king.
Perhaps some of the gems gifted by Abbas, and passed on to Shah Jahan, are visible in the 1627 image of Jahangir which fronts the NPG exhibition. I can’t find an electronic copy of this to share with you – but here is Shah Jahan, both wearing and looking appreciatively at jewels.
The Sotheby’s autumn sale – as well as the dated black-ring dish mentioned earlier – also included an important engraved Mughal spinel. Click here to see Sotheby’s own picture, including blown-up images of the engraved names.
This stone is tiny compared to the real blockbuster gems – a measly 39 carats compared to the 133 carats of the Carew spinel, or the whopping 783 carat (150 gram) spinel reportedly offered by Sir Thomas Roe to Jahangir in 1616. Despite this, it’s still an impressive 2.1 by 1.7cm – and reached a more than respectable sale-price of £67,250.
Although I’ve been writing about Abbas’ gifts of jewels to the Mughals, there were – and still, of course, are – plenty of stunning jewels left in the Iranian collection. I’m going to talk more about this another time, but in the meanwhile, click here to have a look at the eye-popping jewel-studded globe constructed by Nasser al-Din Shah “to help keep track of the loose gemstones in the treasury”, along with an mind-boggling 35kg of pure gold.