Tomb of I'timad-ud-Daulah

This small jewel of a tomb sits on the eastern bank of the Yamuna, two kilometres upstream from the Taj. It was built between 1622 and 1628 by Empress Nur Jahan for her father Mirza Ghiyas Beg, a Persian noble whom Jahangir had made his chief minister and given the title I'timad-ud-Daulah ("Pillar of the State").

It is the first Mughal building made entirely of white marble and the first to use pietra dura inlay — the techniques that would reach their peak at the Taj Mahal. The proportions are intimate (the whole tomb fits inside a small walled garden) and the inlay decoration is denser and more delicate than anything at the Taj. Few tour groups bother with it, so you may have the place almost to yourself.

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Often called the 'Baby Taj', this is the older Taj — it was completed in 1628, four years before Shah Jahan even began the Taj Mahal. The dense inlay work and the use of white marble on a Mughal tomb were tried here first; the Taj is in many ways its grander descendant.

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