Gardens of the Delhi Palace
June 30, 1830
Architectural and Building
Akbar Shah II 1806–1837
Gardens of the Delhi Palace
IMG100719

DESCRIPTION

Gardens of the Delhi Palace, by a Delhi artist, c.1830. From a History of Shahjahan written by Muhammad Salih Kanbu, 'Amal-i-Salib, c.1830. The artist has given us a charming picture of the Hyat Bakhsh garden in the Delhi Palace focused in the central pool of the char Bagh garden over which Bahadur Shah was to erect his Zafar Mahal in 1842. On the terrace is the now vanished Moti Mahal with the Shah burj to the left and matching even if non-existent pavilion to the right against the back of the Hamman, linked by a serpentine Nahr-i-Bihisht. Men dressed in short Shahjhani jamas stand around and even disport themselves in the pool, a lese-majeste surely impossible in the 17th Century but perhaps permissible in the 19th.