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Painting and Patronage under Shah ᶜabbas I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Anthony Welch
Anthony Welch*
Affiliation:
a Assistant Professor in the History in Art Department , University of Victoria
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Extract

The accession of Shāh ᶜAbbās I to the Safavid throne in 1587 does not mark an immediate, abrupt departure from earlier traditions of royal patronage. Instead, it is a culmination of forces at work throughout the second half of the sixteenth century which come together to alter both the nature of painting and of patronage during his reign. In part, these modifications of previous practice are due to the monarch's own aesthetics; in part, they are the result of the social and economic transformation of late sixteenth century Iran. In some ways the shah's patronage of painting would seem to be more catholic and less determined than that of his predecessors Ismaᶜīl I and Ṭahmāsp, and during his long reign it moves in several different directions and develops at least two divergent styles.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 3-4: Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part II , Summer-Autumn 1974 , pp. 458 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974

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References

Notes

1. By S.C. Welch in A King's Book of Kings (New York: 1972) and the forthcoming Houghton Shahnamah.

2. See Qāī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, trans. V. Minorsky (Washington: 1959), pp. 187-88; and Munshī, Iskandar, Tārīkh-i ᶜĀlam-ārā-i ᶜAbbāsī (Tehran: 1896), p. 176Google Scholar.

3. During the prince's governorship in Mashhad the Freer Haft Aurang of Jaml was produced; seven of the great manuscript's illustrations have been attributed to Shaykh Muḥammad by S.C. Welch in the forthcoming Houghton Ṡhāhnāmah.

4. K.M. Röhrborn, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Berlin: 1966), p. 43.

5. Writing in that year, Qāī Aḥmad describes Shaykh Muhammad's life in the past ṫense, and Iskandar Munshi twenty years later reports that the artist died in the shah's service.

6. Published in color in Grube, E., The World of Islam (New York: 1966)Google Scholar, fig. 83.

7. See Blunt, W., Isfahan, Pearl of Persia (London: 1966)Google Scholar, fig. 65.

8. See Robinson, B.W., Persian Drawings (New York: 1965)Google Scholar, pl. 37.

9. See F.R. Martin, The Miniature Paintings and Painters of Persia, India, and Turkey (London: 1912), pl. 109.

10. B.W. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 40.

11. Martin, pl. 107.

12. Sakisian, A.B., La Miniature Persane du XIIe au XVIIe Siècle (Paris and Bruselles: 1929)Google Scholar, fig. 170.

13. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 46 & 48.

14. As S.C. Welch proves in the Houghton Shāhnāmah, both Mīrzā ᶜAlī and Muẓaffar ᶜAlᶜ are strongly affected by his art in the Freer Haft Aurang.

15. Sakisian, fig. 97.

16. B.W. Robinson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Paintings in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: 1958), pl. XXI.

17. Welch, A., Shah ᶜAbbas and the Arts of Isfahan (New York: 1973)Google Scholar, No. 2.

18. Published in Martin, pl. 162, who reads the inscription as “Work of Loṭf Allāh,” as does B.W. Robinson in Arberry, Robinson, Blochet and Wilkinson, The Chester Beatty Library, A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, vol. III (Dublin: 1962), p. 20. E. Schroeder in Persian Miniatures in the Fogg Museum of Art (Cambridge, Mass.: 1942), p. 123, reads “Loṭf līn-dāmeh” instead of “Loṭf Allāh” and finds no artist's signature, though he attributes the drawing to Riā. I. Stchoukine in Les Peintures des Manuscrits de Shah ᶜAbbās à la Fin des Safavis (Paris: 1964), p. 158, concurs in Schroeder's reading but sees the drawing as a work of one of Riā's students.

19. It can be compared with a number of Riā's early works, e.g. Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas and the Arts of Isfahan.

20. E. Schroeder, Persian Miniatures, pl. 21; B. Gray, Persian Painting (Lausanne: 1961), color plate p.161; A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 6.

21. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 51.

22. Iskandar Munshī, p. 176; Qāī Aḥmad, p. 18.

23. Coomaraswamy, A.K., Les Miniatures Orientales de la Collection Goloubew au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston (Paris and Bruselles: 1929)Google Scholar, pl. XXIV.

24. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 45.

25. Martin, pl. 134.

26. Iskandar Munshī, p. 177 (translation from T.W. Arnold, Painting in Islam, 2nd ed. (New York: 1965), p. 144).

27. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 39 in color.

28. E.g. Sakisian, pl. LXXXIV.

29. Siyāvush's career is discussed at length in A. Welch, Late Sixteenth Century Painting in Iran.

30. In color in A. Welch, Collection of Islamic Art of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, two vol. (Geneva; 1972), Ir. M. 29.

31. Published in Sakisian, pl. LXXXVIII, fig. 157.

32. In A. Welch, Late Sixteenth Century Painting.

33. Ṣādiqī's Qānūn al-Ṣuvar was published in Persian with a Russian translation by A.U. Kaziev (Baku: 1963). Ṣādiqī's Takirah, written in Chaghatai, was published with a Persian translation by A.R. Khiyampur (Tabriz: 1948).

34. B.W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting (London: 1967), pl. 23.

35. Collection R. Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California.

36. Collection Sadruddin Aga Khan, Geneva, Switzerland; published in A. Welch, Catalogue, Ir. M. 29/B.

37. Collection of Sadruddin Aga Khan.

38. Ṣādiqī, Majmaᶜ al-Khwāss, p. 107.

39. Beatty Catalogue, vol. III, No. 277. In his discussion of this great manuscript here, B.W. Robinson delineates the work of these three hands and also proposes that five miniatures are the creation of Riā. He has also suggested to me recently that three miniatures are Ṣādiqī's work, and I whole-heartedly agree with his attributions.

40. For the Garshaspnāmah see B.W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting, No. 48. Zayn al-ᶜAbidīn is discussed in Iskandar Munshī, pp. 174-175 and Qāī Aḥmad, p. 187.

41. One miniature can be safely attributed to his hand: Beatty No. 256, #4.

42. Beatty Catalogue, vol. III, pl. 39; Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting, p. 65, No. 60, pl. 29.

43. E.g. his third (and finest) miniature for the 1587-95 Shahnāmah—the Simurgh Carrying Zal to its Nest—(Beatty Catalogue, vol. III, pl. 41; Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 52; Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting, frontpiece). Or his Seated Man discussed above in note 17.

44. I am indebted to B.W. Robinson for first drawing my attention to this manuscript. The same scholar published it in Oriental Art, vol. XVIII, No. 1 (Spring, 1972).

45. Published in F. Sarre & E. Mittwoch, Die Zeichnungen von Riza ᶜAbbasi (München: 1914) and in N. Falsafī, Zindigānī Shāh ᶜAbbās Awwal (Tehran: 1965), vol. II, p. 70. The information about the struggle between ᶜAlī Riā and Ṣādiqī is contained in Fālsafī, vol. II, pp. 54-55.

46. Since no works bearing ᶜAlī Aṣghar's name have as yet been discovered, it is impossible to delineate the precise artistic relationship between father and son.

47. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Sup. Pers. 1313), Published in Gray, Persian Painting, p. 162 (color).

48. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting, No. 71; A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 51.

49. Fogg Art Museum, Published in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 7.

50. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Published in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 9; E. Grube, Muslim Miniature Painting (Venice: 1962), No. 100.

51. Iskandar Munshī, p. 176; Qāī Aḥmad, p. 192.

52. Q.v. Stchoukine, Les Peintures des Manuscrits de Shah ᶜAbbās, pp. 101-08.

53. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (May, 1967), pp. 317-52: “The Language of the Birds: The Fifteenth-Century Miniatures” by M.G. Lukens; “The Seventeenth Century Miniatures” by E.J. Grube.

54. New York Public Library. Published in Grube, Muslim Miniature Painting, No. 105;. E.J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting (New York: 1968), No. 82; A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 14.

55. E.g. collection Sadruddin Aga Khan. Published in Grube, The Classical Style, No. 25.

56. Cincinnati Museum of Art. Published in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 25.

57. Collection Sadrudding Aga Khan. Published in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 50.

58. Fogg Art Museum. Published in A. Welch, Shah ᶜAbbas, No. 12.

59. Q.v. B.N. Zakhoder, Introduction to Qāī Aḥmad's Calligraphers and Painters, pp. 29-30.

60. Writing in 1616, Iskandar Munshī does not mention Ḥabībullāh. The Timurid revival in which he evidently played a major role may well have ended with the great 1614 Spencer Shāhnāmah, and if the shah's interest in it ceased, perhaps Iskandar Munshī saw no reason to discuss Ḥabībullāh.

61. Sakisian, fig. 135. Its companionpiece in style is in the Topkapi Saray (H. 2165, fol. 54b), a signed painting of a young man loading a musket.

62. Robinson, Persian Drawings, pl. 50.

63. Grube, Bulletin Metropolitan Museum (May, 1967), fig. 4 (color).

64. Qāī Aḥmad, p. 192.

65. Falsafī, vol. II, pp. 53-56.

66. Collection Sadruddin Aga Khan.

67. Collection Sadruddin Aga Khan.

68. A. Welch, Shah cAbbas, No. 1.

69. So too she carries a wine cup, as do so many other single figures of the period; the importance and function of wine as a theme and metaphor in Iran's mystical poetry has long been established. Although not the finest of Iranian poems, a verse by Shāh ᶜAbbās’ father Shāh Muḥammad Khudābandah (quoted by Ṣādiqī in his Majmaᶜ al-hwāṣṣ, pp. 9-11) is particularly relevant, for its Sabk-i hindī rhetoric is derived from the great tradition of Iranian mystical poetry:

When the line of his eyebrow showed itself in the clear wine, It was like the crescent moon of the feast of the ᶜId reflected in water.

70. As a result, we find at the same time the development of the theory of the two qalams—that of the calligrapher and that of the painter—in order to justify this interest in painting. This view, that ᶜAlī is not only the first calligrapher but also the first painter, would hitherto have been considered nearly, if not actually, heretical. (See Zakhoder, pp. 23-24).

71. One of the several indications of this increased sense of artistic individuality is that many more works bear artists’ names and that there is far more evidence of individual and even highly independent style.

72. E.g. Topkapi Saray H. 1512, 1513, 1514.

73. Minorsky in Qāī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, p. 166, note 585.

74. This invaluable account, recorded in the 1114 (1702-03) Takirah of Mīrzā Taḥir Naṣirābādī (British Museum Add. 7087) is quoted by Dr. A.R. Khiyampūr in his useful introduction to Ṣādiqī's Majmaᶜ al-Khwāss, p. 5.