Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/102

96 a curtain, and this picture is represented in a contemporary painting which has fortunately been preserved. Tavernier saw on a gate outside Agra a representation of Jahángír's tomb 'carved with a great black pall with many torches of white wax, and two Jesuit Fathers at the end,' and adds that Sháh-Jahán allowed this to remain because 'his father and himself had learnt from the Jesuits some principles of mathematics and astrology. The Augustinian friar Manrique, who came to inspect the Jesuit missions, in the time of Sháh-Jahán, found the Prime-minister Ásaf Khán, at Lahore, in a palace decorated with pictures of Christian saints. In most Mughal portraits, the head of the Emperor is surrounded by an aureole or nimbus, and many other features in the schools of painting at Agra and Delhí remind one of contemporary Italian art. The artists were held in high favour at Court, and many of their names have been preserved. Their works added notably to the decoration of the splendid and elaborate palaces which are amongst the most durable memorials of the Mughal period.

Leaving the artists' workshops, and traversing the guard's quadrangle, one reached the cynosure of all courtiers' eyes, the Hall of Audience, or Am-Khás; a vast court, surrounded by covered arcades, with a great open hall or sublimated portico, raised above