The paper examines the model value of the Mughal period in MARG, the leading art journal of 1940s and 1950s India. It combines a discussion of some of the key historiographical questions of Indian art history and the role played by specific art historians, including European exiles who were among the contributors to the journal, with broader questions on the interaction of national cultural identity with global modernism. In this context, the Mughal period—celebrated in MARG for its synthesis of foreign and indigenous styles—was consistently put forward as an example for contemporary artists and architects. From its inception in 1946 until the 1960s the review favoured a return to the spirit of India's prestigious artistic past, but not to its form. Its editorials and articles followed a clearly anti-revivalist and cosmopolitan line. It aimed at redressing misunderstandings that had long undermined the history of Indian art and surmounting the perceived tensions in art and architecture between a so-called Indian style and a modern, international one.