V&A's lecture on Mughal art: cloth, textiles, and luxury fabric

This year, the lecture will specifically focus on how luxury fabrics played a significant role in development of the Mughal Empire.

Dr. Sylvia Houghteling will deliver the annual Benjamin Zucker Lecture On Mughal Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum tonight.

This year, the lecture will specifically focus on how luxury fabrics played a significant role in development of the Mughal Empire.

Dr. Houghtelling is an assistant professor from the department of history of art in Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.

Her research specialises in the visual and material culture of the early modern period with a focus in the textile arts of South Asia, Europe and Islamic lands.

In her recent book, The Art Of Cloth In Mughal India, she explored the period sensibility that informed the production, reception and circulation of textiles in early modern South Asia.

"Textiles carries the fell if a faraway lover, the climate of a homeland and the influence of the emperor across the Mughal realm," she said.

In the past, the Lydia & Manfred Grovy lecture theatre of V&A hosted a number of lectures and talks as parts of the Benjamin Zucker Lecture on Mughal art.

Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Khan's lecture last year on the evolution of Pakistan's most important architectural site at V&A. Source: V&A museum.

For example, last year, Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Khan delivered a lecture on the evolution of Pakistan's most important architectural site, Lahore Fort, which was founded by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the 16th century.

Although it's been more than one and half centuries since the Empire of Mughal fell towards the colonial power of Britain, its are and culture heritage is still being explored by scholars and the public today.

Originally on CityNews (City University of London).