Home UpAgra 3, Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah

Itimad-ud-Daulah is a title: Lord of the Treasury. One holder of that title was Mirza Ghiyar, father of Nur Jehan, wife of Jahangir. She built the tomb for her father but is herself buried near Jahangir in Lahore.

The entrance gate. Beyond is a square enclosure laid out in four quarters, with gates approximately like this one at each side and with the tomb proper at the center.

Marble inlaid in sandstone.

The white marble mausoleum. Water no longer runs in the channel. Unlike the Chini-ka-Razah shown in the next folder, this tomb fuses Persian and Indian elements.

Each side has three entrances, though the side ones are blocked with jalis, or carved screens.

A view from the southwest corner, with the entrance gate on the right. Now that you've had a moment to form your own opinion, here's James Fergusson, always opinionated and often shrewdly so: "The towers, however, are rather squat in proportion, and the general design of the building very far from being so pleasing as that of many less pretentious tombs in the neighborhood. Had it, indeed, been built in red sandstone, or even with an inlay of white marble like that of Humayun, it would not have attracted much attention. Its real merit consists of being wholly in white marble, and being covered through with a mosaic in 'pietra dura'—the first, apparently, and certainly one of the most splendid, examples of that class of ornamentation in India." (vol. 2, p. 306)

Close-up of a jali with surrounding inlay.

There are several tombs in the building. The two here at the center are of Mirza Ghiyar and his wife, Asmat Begum. Her cenotaph, though slightly smaller, is at the precise center.

A view of the walls and ceiling decoration.

The dome.

The floor.

This is the fourth gate, not actually a gate but a pavilion overlooking the Yamuna RIver.

Closer.

Waterside.

Jali.

Roof brackets. That's Agra across the river, the Taj is downstream on that side just a bit.