Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, is today a large sprawling city of almost eight million people that serves as Pakistan’s centre for education and the arts. In its past the city has had two major periods of glory – during the reigns of the Great Mughals and during the rule of Ranjit Singh and his two sons with the century separating the two a virtual terra incognito. Under British rule there were new influences on art subjects and materials from Europe, and with Partition, a vibrant new modern painting was born in the city. This book presents new research on painting and calligraphy produced in Lahore, written by scholars who live in the city today.
 
Barbara Schmitz has a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She was a Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) Scholar at the Department of Fine Art, Lahore College for Women University (2007-09) and Research Associate, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi (1995-2006). She received a Getty Foundation Award for a catalogue of illustrated manuscripts in the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna, and two Fulbright Foundation awards. She has written several books, exhibition catalogues, articles, and was co-author with Ziyaud-Din Desai of Mughal and Persian Paintings and Illustrated Manuscripts in the Raza Library, Rampur (2006). She edited After the Great Mughals: Paintings in Delhi and the Regional Courts in the 18th and 19th Centuries for Marg (2002).