ARTS OF INDIA: 1550-1900 by Guy...

ARTS OF INDIA: 1550-1900 by Guy Shaw and Deborah Swallow (Victoria and Albert Museum/ Trafalgar Square: $39.95). The Victoria and Albert Museum houses the world’s greatest collection of the art of India outside the subcontinent, and this volume is devoted to the more recent artifacts on display in the newly established Nehru Gallery. Between 1550 and 1900, India was dominated--superficially at least--by foreign rulers: Mogul emperors, European colonists and, finally, the British Raj. Although this handsome book features many interesting examples of cultural cross-pollination, the splendid color photographs of textiles, carvings, paintings, jewelry and furniture reveal that foreign influences were eventually subsumed by the native culture, like drops of dye lost in a vast sea.