Of all the great dynasties the world has produced, the Moguls of India have gifted us the most beautiful remains. Such is the view of one prominent aficionado, HH Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, a member of the Qatari ruling family. The 33-year-old is the man behind a new exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum opening this month, which offers a close-up look at his dazzling private collection, hailed as one of the top few in the world.  It features not only jewellery and trinkets from the Muslim dynasty that ruled most of northern India from the early-16th to the mid-18th century but also later pieces that show how following generations picked up the Mogul themes and ran with them, right through to Cartier’s Art Deco creations in the 20th-century and contemporary pieces from the 21st.  It seems fitting that the V&A should play host to such a display, since this is where, for Sheikh Hamad, it all started. In October 2009 he visited its Maharaja exhibition. The exhibits he saw that day fuelled his love affair with fine jewellery, and particularly that of the Mogul emperors. So beguiled was he that he began a worldwide search for items from the period.  Talking to him at Dudley House, the belle époque mansion on Park Lane that he has acquired, renovated and furnished with decorative arts at the highest level, he appears thoughtful, understated and with old-world manners. But he comes alive when discussing his treasures, and is gratified that the museums of the world are now queuing up to borrow what he calls "his babies". The collection was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last year, where it received rave reviews.  For Sheikh Hamad, the pleasure comes in making his chosen subject known to a wider audience. "The jewelled arts of India have fascinated me from an early age and I have been fortunate to be able to assemble a meaningful collection," he told the New York museum at the time.  Like all collectors, he believes in the importance of provenance, both as a guarantee of authenticity and for the romance it brings with it. In the case of the Moguls, that sense of romance is not hard to find. The dynasty, of Turco-Mongol origin, may have been founded on an appetite for conquest but beyond the battlefield its rulers were renowned for their patronage of science and the arts, as well as for religious tolerance (the population over which they presided was mostly Hindu).  When Sheikh Hamad speaks of his collecting hero we come into the presence of the most magical name in the story, Shah Jahan, who reigned from 1628 to 1658, a period that marked the dynasty’s cultural high point. It was during this time that Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, and it is great buildings such as this for which the Moguls are best known. But it is the personal jewellery and private objets de vie that afford us the most intimate glimpse of these warrior-aesthetes. And few great rulers have displayed such discrimination in their personal objects as Shah Jahan.  The sheikh shows me Shah Jahan’s emerald, with an inscription using the imperial title padishah ("master of kings") before he was entitled, revealing his intention to overthrow his father. Equally personal is the Shah Jahan dagger (c1620-25), the handle of which is cut from a single block of jade and ends in a finial of a boy’s head. The blade, with its emblem of the imperial umbrella ("the shade of God") is from Shah Jahan’s time, but the sheikh believes the handle was carved during the reign of Shah Jahan’s father by Venetian craftsmen at the Mogul court, which would account for the boy’s European appearance.  If he’s correct, it would not be the only foreign influence at the Mogul court. The sheikh points to the evident influence of Persian craftsmen, which he illustrates with a pen case and inkwell of gold, encrusted with emeralds and cabochon rubies, which would have been used on state occasions.  One object that will have a special resonance for British visitors, who may have seen the celebrated Tipu’s Tiger in the V&A’s permanent collection, is the finial from the throne of Tipu Sultan, a tiger’s head in gold, inlaid with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. It is one of eight that used to adorn the throne of this sworn enemy of British ambitions in India, and was captured after the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, when Tipu was killed.  So how did such treasures come into the sheikh’s possession? Behind each object is a different story, it seems. The Shah Jahan dagger came on to the British market in the 1970s and popped up at a V&A exhibition the following decade before once again disappearing. It was a curator at the museum who set up the sale by a private collector to the sheikh.  Other pieces entered his hands fortuitously, but not without great effort on his part. A text message from a friend, for instance, led to his acquisition of the tiered ruby choker that Jacques Cartier had made in 1931 for the Maharaja of Patiala. The sheikh’s friend informed him Cartier had the piece, so he contacted the company and put it on hold before jetting from Hong Kong to see it in Paris.  But if Sheikh Hamad’s flair for collecting sets him apart, he is not the first aesthete produced by the Al Thani family. Sheikh Saoud, his older cousin who died last year, was a compulsive collector of antiquities who established Doha as an art destination. Sheikh Hamad, by contrast, enjoys restoring palaces in Europe. As well as Dudley House, undoubtedly the grandest private residence in London today, he and his family have acquired the Hôtel Lambert in Paris, former home of the Rothschilds, and he speaks of his separate passion for architecture with an equally impressive knowledge.  Yet I wonder if anything makes him light up quite as much as his beloved jewels. When he shows me his rosewater sprinkler (1675-1725), made of gold and set with foiled cabochon rubies and emeralds divided by rows of half-pearls, his face beams with pleasure. The item bears an inscription from the Imperial Treasury and was part of the then emperor’s personal equipage. "I can feel the vibrations," he says, in near-reverential tones.  The body of his collection may hail from an exotic past, but for Sheikh Hamad these emperors are very much alive through their treasures. When the public stream in to see his delights, a shining slice of old India will come alive for them too.
A sparkling new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum unveils a hoard of rarely seen treasures from India’s Mogul empire