India's royalty kept its painters close. The Padshahnama, Shah Jahan's chronicle, fills its darbar scenes with nobles drawn from life, while the artists of Mewar filled great sheets with the Maharanas of Udaipur riding out in procession, elephants, banners and magnificence.

We paint these scenes the same way, with fine squirrel-hair brushes on layered wasli paper or canvas. The jewels are picked out in gold, the pearls raised in tiny dots of organic stone paint, and the surface burnished with agate stone, because nothing else catches the glitter of a royal court quite like it.

The Royal Darbars and Processions Collection carries that grandeur forward, from Mughal halls to the streets of Rajput kingdoms.