Acknowledgments
I first visited India as an eight-year-old, at the tail end of my father’s work in the Philippines as a water engineer. We toured Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Varanasi, Khajoraho, and other places that made unforgettable impressions on us. I’d like to think that my love for India and especially for the Mughals started there.
Writing a book is not a solitary act. This project could never have come to fruition without the support, love, patience and generosity of many individuals and institutions. I owe thanks to my advisor, Priscilla Soucek, who encouraged me to follow the footsteps of Babur and shift my intellectual interest from Central Asia to Mughal India. From her sharp perception, I have learned to ask questions and look closely at works of art. Oleg Grabar, my teacher, mentor and former boss, spent endless time listening to my thoughts, arguing points, always supportive, enthusiastic and encouraging. He taught me how to think big without losing sight of details, as he patiently pushed me to stop procrastinating. This book has been ten years in the making thanks to his voice in my head.
At the early stages of this project, during my years at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, I benefited from various exchanges with Marilyn and Irving Lavin, Patricia Crone, and Nicola Di Cosmo. At the Max Planck Institute in Florence, I enjoyed exciting conversations with Avinoam Shalem, Gerhard Wolf, Annette Hofmann, Galia Halpern, and Olga Bush. As a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the College of the Holy Cross, I was able to further my research, writing, and traveling, and develop as a teacher and a scholar through the mentorship of Jody Ziegler and Virginia Reguin, who took me under their wings. In later stages of my book project, the generosity of the Aga Khan fellowship programs at Harvard and MIT was crucial in providing me with the perfect conditions to work. I am truly grateful to Gulru Necipoglu, Nasser Rabbat, David Roxburgh, Jim Wescoat, and my co-fellows, Jan Haenraets and Anas Soufan, for their support and comments on portions of the book.
This kind of research requires extensive travelling (which I love) and the help of many people, to whom I owe endless thanks: Yashodhara Agrawal and Ajay Kumar Singh (Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi), Sheila Canby and Navina Najat Haidar (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Ms. Daljit (formerly of National Museum, New Delhi), Massumeh Farhad, Debra Diamond and Simon Retting (Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, Smithsonian Institution), Susan Stronge (Victoria and Albert Museum), Muhammad Isa Waley and Ursula Sims-Williams (British Library), Elaine Wright (formerly of Chester Beatty library). I am also profoundly grateful to Qamar Adamji (Museum of Asian Art, San Francisco), Adel Adamova (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), Filiz Çakir Phillip (The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto), Asok Kumar Das (formerly of City Palace Museum, Jaipur), Kjeld von Folsach (The David Collection, Copenhagen), Julia Gonnella (formerly of Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin), Bindu Gude, Stephen Markel and Linda Komaroff (Los Angeles County Museum), Amy Landau (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore), Sophie Makariou, Jean-Baptiste Clais (formerly of Musée du Louvre), Mary McWilliams (Harvard Art Museums), Amina Okada (Musée Guimet), Christoph Rauch (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), Francis Richard and Annie Vernay-Nouri (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), Marika Sardar (formerly of San Diego Art Museum), Andrew Topsfield and Francesca Leoni (Ashmolean Museum), and Laura Weinstein (Boston Museum of Fine Arts) for opening their collections and storage rooms for me.
I am indebted to many friends and colleagues who responded to queries, gave thoughtful advice, and shared their expertise and materials with me. It is my pleasure to mention Sussan Babaie, Chanchal Dadlani, Barry Flood, Andrea Gallelli Huezo, Abduallah Ghushani, Eva Hoffman, Chad Kia, Amy Landau, Francesca Leoni, Paul Losensky, Amanda Luyster, Maya Muratov, Rachel Neis, Sunil Sharma, Robert Skelton and Aysin Yoltar-Yildirim. I am indebted to Tamara Sears for providing feedback on an early version of the manuscript, and my writing group: Marden Nichols, Michelle Wang and Katherine Wasdin, who patiently saw me through the evolving stages of this book. My thanks go to all of them for their generosity and thoughtfulness. I am also grateful for the insightful comments of the two anonymous reviewers from Brill.
Through their teaching, thinking and sharing of ideas, my colleagues at the George Washington University have created a positive intellectual environment for me to work. My warmest thanks go to the faculty of the Art History program, the diverse departments and institutions at Columbian College and the Elliot School.
I gratefully acknowledge funding support for research, manuscript editing, and image procurement and permissions from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the program in Art History, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies at GW, and the American Association of University Women.
Kathy van Vliet of Brill Publishers has been commendable, supportive, and patient throughout this process. Marsha Pomeranz made my prose understood and legible. I am also appreciative of the excellent editorial assistance provided by Pam Ozaroff and Andy Johnson.
Lastly, to all the people whom I drove crazy for many years with the Mughal obsession: Ron and Hila Sela, Elliot Sperling, Jean-Michel Bertoli, Raul Rabadan, Natif-Melnik family, Miry Kornhauser, Gili Shilo and Lydia Paz. And to Toby, the tallest cat of them all, who bravely read every word and kept me healthy and alive throughout this process.