Mughal Glass: Read an exclusive excerpt from the book by Tara Desjardins

Why is there so little known about these exquisite artefacts? How far back can they be traced? Answers begin to take shape, in an excerpt from the introduction.

The history of Indian glass is, in fact, two histories: that of glass’ evolution within the history of glass production, and the other, the history of the Indian subcontinent during the early modern period. The first explores the experimentation of glass recipes and how these impacted production and industry, while the other examines the greater socio-political transformation of Mughal India during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both histories develop in parallel until they collide in the late seventeenth and