Treasures of the Mughals and the Maraja is a touring exhibition that celebrates Indian jades and jewels from XVI to XX century belonging to the Al Thani Collection.

Opening for the first time to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2014, the exhibition then travelled to the V&A in London, the Miho Museum in Japan, The Gran Palais in Paris, Palazzo Ducale in Venice and finally to the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2018.

We worked closely with bGcstudio, who also designed the previous exhibition at the Gran Palais, to realize a lighting scheme that would make the jewels the masterpieces of the space, finding a delicate balance between ambient and display lighting.

The magnificent windows of the Sala dello Scrutinio were partially blacked out, to control the natural light and recreate a more dramatic atmosphere. The lighting of the painted ceiling and walls followed the narrative of the stories, giving a sense of dynamism and excitement to the visitor; highlighting vistas and long views but always paying attention to the rendering of fine details on even the smallest display.

We developed a strategy to easily integrate and install new lighting into the existing showcases, using fibre optics and small spotlights to reduce the glare to the minimum. The entire exhibition was designed with LED lights to contain power consumption and heating for conservation levels.