The Avenue at Baber's Tomb, 1840 (tinted lithograph)

Tinted lithograph from bound volume of 26 tinted lithographs, 'Sketches in Afghanistan', 1838-1842, by Louis and Charles Haghe after James Atkinson, published by Henry Graves and Company and J W Allen and Company, 1 July 1842. Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), the first Mughal Emperor, wished to be interred in his favourite city of Kabul, but was first buried in a mausoleum in Agra. Around ten years later his body was transferred by Sher Shah Suri to a beautiful garden on the western slopes of the Sher-e-Darwaza mountain to the south of Kabul. Further additions to the garden and tomb were made by the Emperors Jehangir and Shahjahan, who built a mosque there in 1650. The Persian inscription on Babur's tomb reads: 'If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this'.