Book excerpt: "Metalwork has always been to India what ceramics are to China. During the fabled Mughal age, the craftsmen of the Sultans and Rajahs of India produced an astonishing variety of objects in gold and gold enamel, silver, brass, bronze, gilt copper and the Deccani alloy known as bidri. The finest of these are among the most striking and poetic utilitarian wares ever made, in addition to being of the most outstanding technical refinement." "This, the first book on the metalwork of Mughal India, illustrates all the great surviving objects, the majority of which have never been published before and are unknown to the western connoisseur."--Jacket.