London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A) is treating visitors to an Aladdin’s cave of jewels, dating back to the Indian Mughal era that gave us the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the glorious Taj Mahal.

Continuing into April, the exhibition “Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection” gathers 100 objects, from the Timur Ruby to a 70-carat Golconda diamond, from jewel-encrusted swords to turban ornaments.

Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani of the Qatari royal family owns most of the pieces, and Queen Elizabeth has loaned three others, including the fabled Timur Ruby – a set of huge chunks of spinel (a red stone mined in Badakhshan in central Asia) on a necklace of pearls. The pink hue of the spinels radiates off the pearls beautifully.

Timur, the great Turkish-Mongol conqueror of the 15th century, never owned it, and the stones are not ruby, but they are nonetheless spectacular. The set was taken from the Mughal treasury amid the British invasion. One of the spinels bears a tiny inscription to the Mughal emperor Akbar.

Also from the Mughal treasury are nephrite jade objects, including a golden dagger and scabbard set with rubies and emeralds from the late 16th century, and a wine cup made in 1607. The cup is decorated with fine Persian calligraphy. Pale nephrite jade came from Khotan on the Silk Road. Exhibition curator Susan Stronge described this as “arguably one of the best jade collections in the world”.

Turban decorations in enamelled gold with diamonds and spinels and an aigrette with fine, fluffy feathers in platinum studded with diamonds and sapphires attest to the opulence of the Indian emperors and the superiority of the imperial craftsmen.

A video demonstration of the ancient kundan technique – employed by the Indian goldsmiths of the imperial courts to set gemstones with highly refined gold – is inspiring enough to make viewers sign up for a jewellery course. The goldsmiths combined this technique with European-style enamelling to create exquisite pieces, like the turban with its front adorned with gemstones in kundan settings and the back of intricate enamel work. This dual technique is still used today in Jaipur and Bikaner.

The 70.21-carat Arcot II diamond from India’s Golconda mines – given to Queen Charlotte (consort to George III) in 1767 by the Nawab of Arcot – draws gasps.

India influenced jewellery design in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s, like those from Cartier and designers such as Paul Iribe. Traditional Indian forms became Art Deco. The appeal of “Bejewelled Treasures” thus becomes not just aesthetic but also historical, even the love stories behind some of the pieces. The display earning the biggest queues has a peacock brooch and hair ornament from French jewellery house Mellerio dits meller.

Jagjit Singh, Maharaja of Kapurthala, bought it in Paris in 1905 while en route to a royal wedding in Madrid. There, like in a fairytale, he fell in love with a 16-year-old dancer named Anita Delgado and presented it to her at their own wedding. It’s an exquisite gold, diamond and enamel peacock with blue, green and yellow enamelling for the upper body and long, delicate strands of gold feathers studded with diamonds. Delgado returned to India as the Sikh ruler’s fifth wife.

An emerald brooch began life as a decoration for one of the Kapurthala royal elephants. Delgado admired it and the maharaja promised it to her if she learned to speak Urdu. She earned it as a gift for her 19th birthday. The emerald was later set as a brooch in Paris, but Delgado often wore it as a bracelet, necklace or hair ornament.

Some of the treasures on view were spoils of war, looted by East India Company soldiers from imperial treasuries that changed ownership several times. One of them, a golden tiger’s-head finial from the throne of Tipu Sultan, Maharaja of Mysore in the southern state Karnataka, ended up in Windsor Castle.

Tipu Sultan was a thorn in the side of the British intent on seizing Mysore and its mineral riches. He was used to opulence and was known to fight with a sword encrusted with rare gems. A tough general who defeated the East India Company on five occasions, Tipu said he would rather live a day as a tiger than spend a lifetime as a sheep, and had the tiger as his emblem.

Tipu was killed defending his kingdom in the siege of Seringapaham in 1799. His hexagonal throne, bedecked in gold and gemstones, was broken up and stolen by the British soldiers. Surgeon-Major Pulteney Mein, an eyewitness to the plunder, wrote, “This gorgeous throne was barbarously knocked to pieces with a sledgehammer.”

Of the eight gold tiger-head finials decorating the throne, only three remain, one of which was auctioned in London in 2010 for 434,400 pounds (Bt26.1 million at today’s rate). Queen Elizabeth owns another and has loaned it for this exhibition.

Yet another stunning piece given to Queen Charlotte is a canopy decoration from Tipu’s throne, a depiction of the Huma bird of Persian lore with a long, upright tail like a peacock’s made of gold and decorated with precious stones. The neck is emeralds and the body diamonds and rubies.

For drooling purposes

“Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection” is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s India Festival ending on April 10.

Find out more at http://www.VAM.ac.uk.