Tucked away within the vast storage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a 17th century folio of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his son, depicted in dazzling watercolor and gold, admiring emeralds and rubies. It’s a gorgeous representative of the rich tradition of imperial Mughal manuscripts and miniatures, and when Bharti Lalwani came across the image on the Met’s website, she was immediately drawn in. “I’m salivating looking at this,” she recalled. But it wasn’t really the painting that caught her eye. It was its border: a sumptuous menagerie of birds, florals, and fruiting trees.