A hookah or water pipe is a smoking device that cools tobacco smoke by drawing it from the hot combustion bowl through cold water in a reservoir base; the smoker then inhales it through a long, sometimes porous tube fitted with a mouthpiece. Made of embossed and engraved silver, this elaborate hookah features a large reservoir base ringed around the bottom with burgeoning bouquets of three individualized flowers with common foliage set in cartouches formed by floral wands articulated with stylized acanthus leaves and shell motifs. A band of plain fluting above the floral cartouches demarcates and accentuates the pendant acanthus leaves and strapwork gracing the shoulder. Two ornate tubular stems extend through a fitting screwed into the mouth of the hookah. The primary stem connects to the separately cast combustion bowl and cover, with the secondary stem connecting to the (now-replacement) inhalation tube. Although the Mughal Emperors Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and Jahangir (r. 1605-27) forbade smoking on the advice of their physicians, and despite the subsequent heavy tax levied on tobacco until 1659, smoking and the use of various types of hookahs spread rapidly through all levels of Indian society after tobacco’s introduction by Portuguese traders in the late 16th century. From the late 17th century onward, hookahs functioned as a stock pictorial motif indicating the sitter’s high status and refinement in portraits of nobles, courtiers, and "Indianized" Europeans.