PROBABLY DELHI, INDIA, 19TH CENTURY

Arjumand Banu Begum, better known as Nur Jahan, was the beloved wife of the Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58). It was for her that the Emperor built the Taj Mahal after she died giving birth to her fourteenth child in 1631. A similar portrait on ivory of Nur Jahan is on a bracelet with five other portrait miniatures in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (acc. 38.665)