Museum Explorer
Dress and ornament in Asia
Mughal pendant
From: India (Mughal dynasty)
Date: 17th century AD
This amazing pendant was owned by the Mughal Emperor of India. It shows a flying bird with a huge diamond in the centre of its back. The red stones around it are big rubies, and the pendant is made of gold. If you look closely you can see that the wing tips and tail of the bird are green emeralds. The back and sides are beautifully decorated in enamel, a kind of shiny glass, showing more birds and plants.
The Mughal emperors loved to show off their wealth, and owned many staggering jewels. One visitor to the court in 1616 described the emperor wearing a ruby ‘big as a walnut’ along with many other pearls, rubies, diamonds and emeralds and ‘almost on every finger a ring’.
