The black tomb that was never built

Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and if the story's true, he had a second one planned for himself. A French traveller first wrote it down in 1665: an identical tomb in black marble, standing directly across the river, joined to the white one by a bridge, so the two of them would face each other forever.

He never got the chance to build it. In 1658, his own son overthrew him and locked him away in Agra Fort for the rest of his life. The story goes that he spent his final years there simply watching the Taj Mahal from his window, close enough to see it, unable to reach it. No trace of black marble has ever turned up, and plenty of historians think the whole thing is legend rather than fact. Either way, when he died, he was buried in the white one, beside her, which might be the better ending anyway.

I painted it in watercolour and ink, that white marble catching the light. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Taj Mahal, Agra · Travel Poster