FATHEHPUR- SIKRI , MICHAEL BRAND AND GLENN D, LOWRY, MARG PUBLICATIONS,HARDCOVER, 1987

Lying along a sandstone ridge overlooking a now-dry lake barely 40 kilometres west of Agra, the city of Fatehpur-Sikri served as the capital of the Mughal empire from 1571 until 1385. Fatehpur-Sikri was one of the greatest creations of Akbar who ascended the Mughal throne in 1556 at the age of 14 and ruled over much of India until his death in 1605. This new city, with its remarkable palace complex laid out around a series of courtyards and tanks and its imposing Jami Masjid dominating the skyline for miles around, was devised as the perfect setting for Akbar’s radically original political, social, and artistic experiments. As such, Fatehpur-Sikri can be seen as part of a wider phenomenon that includes Louis XIV’s palace of Versailles near Paris and ultimately leads to the creation in our century of such new capital cities as Chandigarh, Canberra, and Brasilia.

This special edition of Marg devoted to the art and history of Fatehpur-Sikri features articles written by an international group of scholars who gathered for a conference on this subject held at Harvard University in 1985 as part of the Festival of India.

Michael Brand is Curator of Asian Art at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA.
Glenn D. Lowry is Curator of Near Eastern Art at the Center for Asian Art, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.