It is a small town
located on national highway toconnecting Delhi
to Kolkata.
The town is believed to be named after
Mirza
Ghiyas
Beg the
I'timād-ud-Daulah,
a Mughal
official, father of
Nur
Jahan
and grandfather of
Mumtaz
Mahal.
Itmad-ud-Daula's Tomb (Urdu: اعتماد
الدولہ کا مقبرہ, I'timād-ud-Daulah kā Maqbara)
is a Mughal mausoleum in the city of Agra in the
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Often described
as 'jewel box', sometimes called the 'Baby Tāj',
the tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah is often regarded
as a draft of the Tāj Mahal.
Along with the main building, the structure
consists of numerous outbuildings and gardens.
The tomb, built between 1622 and 1628 represents
a transition between the first phase of
monumental Mughal architecture - primarily built
from red sandstone with marble decorations, as
in Humayun's Tomb in Delhi and Akbar's tomb in
Sikandra - to its second phase, based on white
marble and pietra dura inlay, most elegantly
realized in the Tāj Mahal.
The mausoleum was commissioned by Nūr Jahān, the
wife of Jahangir, for her father Mirzā Ghiyās
Beg, originally a Persian Amir in exile .[1] who
had been given the title of I'timād-ud-Daulah
(pillar of the state). Mirzā Ghiyās Beg was also
the grandfather of Mumtāz Mahāl (originally
named Arjūmand Bāno, daughter of Asaf Khān), the
wife of the emperor Shāh Jahān, responsible for
the building of the Tāj Mahal.
Located on the left bank of the Yamuna
river, the mausoleum is set in a large cruciform
garden criss-crossed by water courses and
walkways. The mausoleum itself covers about
twenty-three meters square, and is built on a
base about fifty meters square and about one
meter high. On each corner are hexagonal towers,
about thirteen meters tall.
The walls are white marble from Rajasthan
encrusted with semi-precious stone decorations -
cornelian, jasper, lapis lazuli, onyx, and topaz
formed into images of cypress trees and wine
bottles, or more elaborate decorations like cut
fruit or vases containing bouquets. Light
penetrates to the interior through delicate jālī
screens of intricately carved white marble.
Many of Nūr Jahān's relatives are interred in
the mausoleum. The only asymmetrical element of
the entire complex is that the cenotaphs of her
father and mother have been set side-by-side, a
formation replicated in the Tāj Mahal |