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Bihzad's Lost Album

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2022

A.T. ADAMOVA
A.T. ADAMOVA*
Affiliation:
The State Hermitage Museum
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article1 suggests that some works in the muraqqa' of Bahram Mirza (Shah Tahmasp's brother) in 951/1544-45 (Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 2154) may have come from the well-known album compiled and decorated by Bihzad, from which only the preface by Khvandamir remains. Dust Muhammad (the calligrapher) thus included the works of Bihzad that had previously been part of Bihzad's album, together with their captions, in Bahram Mirza's muraqqa'. In working on his album, Dust Muhammad followed the style of Bihzad, adding the inscriptions to the unsigned works in the same handwriting in similarly decorated panels. It suggests that Bahram Mirza's muraqqa' follows the same arrangement as that compiled earlier by Bihzad, which was probably one of Bihzad's most important works of the Safavid period when he worked in the court workshop of Shah Tahmasp in Tabriz.

Keywords

Bahram MirzaBihzadPersian Painting
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 32 , Special Issue 4: Studies in Honour of Barbara Brend , October 2022 , pp. 912 - 931
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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References

1 A translation from an original article published in the Transactions of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, 2021. A. Adamova, ‘Ob al'bome (muraqqa’) Behzada’ (On the album (muraqqa’) by Bihzad), Lukonin (1932–1984) Memorial Volume, Transactions of the State Hermitage (St Petersburg, 2021), pp. 209–225.

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6 M. Ashrafi, Behzad i razvitiye buharskoy shkoly miniatiury XVI veka (Bihzad and the Development of the School of Miniature Painting in Bukhara in the 16th Century) (Dushanbe, 1987); Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, pp. 303–327.

7 See C. Adle, ‘Les Artistes nommés Dust Mohammad au XVI siècle’, Studia Iranica (1993), fasc. 2, p. 240, n. 83: “born ca. 1465”; Soudavar, A., Art of the Persian Courts (New York, 1992), p. 95Google Scholar: “ca. 1467”; the date of his death is also not generally agreed.

8 In 1516, Tahmasp, then two years old, was appointed the governor of Khurasan by Shah Isma'il and sent to Herat.

9 O. Akimushkin, ‘Zametki k biografii Kamal ad Dina Behzada’ (Notes on the biography of Kemal al-Din Behzad), Pismennye pamiatniki i problemy istorii kultury narodov Vostoka (Written Sources and Problems of History of Peoples of the East) (Moscow, 1979), XIV, 1, pp. 9–15, reprinted in Srednevekovuy Iran, Kultura, istoria, philologia (Medieval Iran, Culture, History and Philology) (St Petersburg, 2004), pp. 351–367. But see in Bahari, E., Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting (London, 1996), p. 188Google Scholar that Bihzad went to Tabriz in 1529, when the Uzbeks again captured Herat.

10 Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, cat. no. 146; L. Balafrej, The Making of the Artist in Late Timurid Painting (Edinburgh, 2019).

11 Roxburgh, ‘Kamal al-Din Bihzad and authorship in Persianate painting’, n. 6 on p. 141; Balafrej, The Making of the Artist in Late Timurid Painting, pp. 185–187, figs. 5.1–5.4.

12 M. S. Simpson, ‘Bihzad's second career at the Safavid Court’, Collected Essays in the International Congress Honoring Kamal al Din Bihzad, (ed.) Behnam Sadri (Tehran, 2005) pp. 69–80.

13 O. Akimushkin, ‘O pridvornoy kitabhane Sefevida Tahmasba I v Tabrize’ (On the Court Kitabkhana of the Safavid Tahmasp in Tabriz), Srednevekovuy Vostok, istoria, kultura, istochnikovedenie (The Medieval East: History, Culture, Sources) (Moscow, 1980), pp. 5–19, reprinted in Srednevekovuy Iran, Kultura, istoria, philologia, pp. 351–367.

14 Saint Petersburg, Russian National Library, Dorn 441: see Dickson, M. B. and Welch, S. C., The Houghton Shahnameh (Cambridge, MA, 1981), Vol. 1, p. 240Google Scholar and notes 13, 14; Vasilyeva, O.V., A String of Pearls: Iranian Fine Books from the 14th to the 17th century in the National Library of Russia Collections (St Petersburg, 2008), pp. 65–71Google Scholar; English translation on pp. 121–122.

15 A. Adamova, ‘The repetition of compositions and the problem of the identification of artists in Persian painting’, The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia, (eds) V. Sarkhosh Curtis, R. Hillenbrand and J. M. Rogers (London; New York, 1998), pp. 175–181. See, for example, Shukurov, Sh., Horasan: territiriya iskusstva (Khurasan: An Artistic Land) (Moscow, 2016), pp. 135–180Google Scholar.

16 Adamova, ‘The repetition of compositions and the problem of the identification of artists in Persian painting’, pp. 175–181.

17 Roxburgh, D., ‘Disorderly conduct? F. R. Martin and the Bahram Mirza Album’, Muqarnas 15 (1998), pp. 32–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roxburgh, ‘Kamal al-Din Bihzad and authorship in Persianate painting’, pp. 124–125.

18 Roxburgh, D., Prefacing the Image. The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth Century Iran (Leiden, 2001)Google Scholar; Roxburgh, D., The Persian Album 1400–1600. From Dispersal to Collection (New Haven and London, 2005)Google Scholar.

19 T. Lentz, ‘Painting at Herat under Baysunghur ibn Shahrukh’, (unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1985), pp. 154–170; Roxburgh, The Persian Album 1400–1600, pp. 83–106.

20 D. Roxburgh, ‘Heinrich Friedrich von Diez and his eponymous albums: Mss. Diez A. Fols.70–74’, Muqarnas 12 (1995), pp. 112–136. See also J. Gonnella, F. Weis and C. Rauch (eds), The Diez Albums, Contexts and Contents (Leiden, 2007).

21 E. Grube and E. Sims (eds), Islamic Art. An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1981).

22 Minorsky, V., Calligraphers and Painters. A Treatise by Qadi Ahmed, Son of Mir-munshi (circa A.H. 1015/A.D. 1606 (Washington, 1959), pp. 183–184Google Scholar.

23 Roxburgh, ’Disorderly conduct?’.

24 Martin, F. R., The Miniature Painting and the Painters of Persia, India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th century (London, 1912)Google Scholar.

25 Named so because one of the paintings in the album was believed to have been created by Gentile Bellini. The portion of the album is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, n. 4, p. 54.

26 Sakisian, A., La miniature persan du XIIe au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar.

27 Stchoukine found the albums compiled and the attributions added in the eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Stchoukine, I., Les peintures des manuscrits safavis de 1502 a 1587 (Paris, 1959), p. 80, no. 34Google Scholar.

28 Binyon, L., Wilkinson, J. V. S. and Gray, B., Persian Miniature Painting (Oxford, 1933), p. 100Google Scholar, cat. no. 89.

29 Dickson and Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh, Vol. 1, pp. 118, 193 and n. 5 on pp. 246–247.

30 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, pp. 32–57.

31 Roxburgh, The Persian Album 1400–1600, pp. 245–307.

32 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, pp. 22, 89–92.

33 Ibid., pp. 92–93; see also p. 24 about the possible authorship of Amini for this preface.

34 Ibid., p. 91, n. 35.

35 Ibid., pp. 24–26; Roxburgh, The Persian Album 1400–1600, p. 250.

36 See translation into English: Sir Thomas Arnold, Painting in Islam (Oxford, 1928; reprinted Mineola, NY, 1965), pp. 34–37; Bahari, Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting, pp. 181–184.

37 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, p. 93.

38 Arnold, Painting in Islam, pp. 34–37.

39 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, p. 55; Melikian-Chirvani, A. S., Le Chant du monde. L'art de l'Iran safavide, 1501–1736 (Paris, 2007), p. 52Google Scholar.

40 Thackston, Wheeler, A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art (Cambridge, MA, 1989), p. 338Google Scholar; Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, p. 55.

41 Adle, ‘Les Artistes nommés Dust Mohammad au XVI siècle’, pp. 263–269.

42 Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, n. 74 on p. 259.

43 Adle, ‘Les Artistes nommés Dust Mohammad au XVI siècle’, pp. 262–263.

44 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 49, nos. 4, 5, figs. 7, 9.

45 Six paintings and drawings are preserved in the album, six are now in various collections; see Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, pp. 34–41, Appendix A, B.

46 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 49, no. 4; see also Phillip, Filiz Çakir, Enchanted Lines. Drawings from the Aga Khan Museum Collection (London, 2014), pp. 22–23Google Scholar, cat. 3.

47 It is interesting that Dickson and Welch use the word unwān to describe the panels that contain the artists’ names in H. 2154, Dickson and Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh, vol. 1, n. 5 on pp. 245–247.

48 Thackston, A Century of Princes, p. 346.

49 D. Roxburgh, ‘Bahram Mirza and his collections’, in Safavid Art and Architecture, (ed.) Sheila Canby (London, 2002), pp. 39–40.

50 The black-and-white drawing (qalam- i siyahi) in H. 2154, f.83v is ascribed to Ustad Mirak naqqash ustad-i Ustad Bihzad (the teacher of the Master Bihzad), see Roxburgh, The Persian Album, p. 285.

51 Ibid., pp. 295–301.

52 Karamağaralı, B., Muhammad Siyah Kalem'e atfedilen minyaturler (Ankara, 1984), fig. 139, il. 131Google Scholar.

53 Karamağaralı, Muhammad Siyah Kalem'e atfedilen minyaturler, fig. 149; two manuscript paintings by Vali mounted in H. 2154 on f.131v; see Roxburgh, The Persian Album, fig. 160 on p. 290.

54 Welch, A., Collection of Islamic Art: Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (Geneva, 1972–78), Vol. 3, pp. 64–65Google Scholar: “ca. 1495”; Canby, Sheila, Princes, Poets and Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (London, 1998), p. 41Google Scholar: “ca. 1485”; Roxburgh, The Persian Album, p. 285, fig. 153: “ca. 1480–1536”; Phillip, Enchanted Lines, cat. 3: “ca. 1485”.

55 Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, cat. no. 136; Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 49, no. 5.

56 See the reconstruction of the folio in Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 34, fig. 1; see also Phillip, Enchanted Lines, p. 23.

57 E. Grube, Muslim Miniature Painting from the XIII to XIX Century from Collections in the United States and Canada (Venice, 1962), p. 75.

58 I. Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits timurides (Paris, 1954), pp. 84–86; Basil Gray, ‘Herat under the Timurid Sultan, Husayn Bayqara’, Marg XXX (March 1977), p. 27; Ashrafi, ‘Behzad i razvitiye buharskoy shkoly miniatiury XVI veka’, p. 103.

59 Bahari, Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting, pp. 171–173; Melikian-Chirvani, Le Chant du monde, pp. 53–58.

60 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, pp. 24–25.

61 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 49, no. 3; Sims, Peerless Images, pp. 271–272, no. 188; Phillip, Enchanted Lines, cat. 4, pp. 44–47.

62 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, fig. 2.

63 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 42; see also Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, pp. 217–218.

64 Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, pp. 245–249, 257.

65 C. Adle, ‘Autopsia, in Absentia: Sur la date de l'introduction et de la construction de l'album de Bahram Mirza par Dust-Mohammad en 951/1544’, Studia Iranica, Tome 19 (1990), pl. X.

66 See Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, fig. 8 (f.29v–30r), fig. 146 (f.43v–44r), figs. 141–142 (f.144v–145r), fig. 132 (f.146v–147r). See also p. 295 for the symmetrical double-page opening of f.17v–18r.

67 Adle, ‘Autopsia, in Absentia’, pp. 219–256, pl. Xia.

68 Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, figs. 131, 134.

69 M. S. Simpson, ‘A manuscript made for the Safavid prince Bahram Mirza’, The Burlington Magazine, June 1991, p. 384.

70 The miniature, left unfinished, repeats the illustration from the famous fourteenth-century Kalila va Dimna pasted into the Istanbul album F.1422, see Ernst J. Grube, ‘Prolegomena for a corpus publication of illustrated Kalilah wa Dimnah Manuscripts’, in Islamic Art: A Biennial Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Islamic World, Vol. IV (Oxford, 1990–1991), pp. 301–481, p. 325, fig. 1B and p. 356, fig. 84.

71 See Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, p. 289 and fig. 160.

72 Roxburgh, ‘Kamal al-Din Bihzad and authorship in Persianate painting’, pp. 119–146, figs. 2 and 3.

73 Ibid., p. 125.

74 Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, p. 289.

75 Roxburgh, ‘Kamal al-Din Bihzad and authorship in Persianate painting’, figs. 4 and 9.

76 Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits timurides, pp. 21–23; Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, p. 95; Bahari, Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting, pp. 38–42.

77 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 124.

78 Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits timurides, pp. 85–86 and the table of dates for the portraits on p. 84.

79 “Seated Scribe” was published by Martin in 1907 as Gentile Bellini's work and it gave the name to the album acquired by him in Istanbul, see Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, fig. 14 on p. 39, p. 50, no. 2; Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, p. 302, fig. 168; A. Chong, ‘Gentile Bellini in Istanbul: myths and misunderstandings’, in Bellini and the East, (eds) C. Campbell and A. Chong (London, 2005); A. Adamova and M. Bayani, Persian Painting. The Arts of the Book and Portraiture (London, 2015), pp. 492–495, cat. 35.

80 zur Capellen, J. Meyer, J. Gentile Bellini (Stuttgart, 1985), Abb. 7, 8Google Scholar; see Adamova and Bayani, Persian Painting, p. 494, where the authors suggest that the painting might be a portrait of Shehzade Korkut (d. 1513), son of Bayezid II, grandson of Mehmed II, a calligrapher, musician, and poet, by a European artist during one of the audiences granted by the Sultan.

81 Atil, E., ‘Ottoman miniature painting under Sultan Mehmed II’, Ars Orientalis IX (1973), pp. 115–117Google Scholar; Blair, S. and Bloom, J., The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250–1800 (New Haven and London, 1994), n. 55Google Scholar on p. 325: “a Turkish portrait of a Turkish artist”.

82 Bahari, Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting, pp. 174–175; Melikian-Chirvani, Le Chant du monde, pp. 52–53, fig. 6.

83 A. Adamova, ‘Repetition of compositions in manuscripts: The Khamsa of Nizami in Leningrad’, in Timurid Art and Culture. Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century, (eds) L. Golombek and M. Subtelny (Leiden, 1992), p. 74; on the problem of repetition of compositions, see also A. Adamova, ‘Problem of the identification of artists in Persian painting’, in The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia, (eds) V. Sarkhosh Curtis, R. Hillenbrand and J. M. Rogers (London, 1998), pp. 175–181.

84 The protruding tip of a cloud collar on the back above the sash in the portrait of a scribe must have been misunderstood by a later, probably twentieth-century, European restorer, who changed the scribe's upper garment most probably looking at the image of a painter.

85 Atil, ‘Ottoman miniature painting under Sultan Mehmed II’, p. 116.

86 See the portraits of Bihzad and Nava'i in Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, “The Portrait of a Dervish from Baghdad” (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, no. 3094.5), fig. 108 on p. 204; Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, fig. 91 on p. 254.

87 Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400–1600, p. 289.

88 Simpson, M. Shreve, Arab and Persian Painting in the Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1980), cat. no. 26Google Scholar; Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, col. il. on p. 243, cat. no. 136.

89 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, fig. 13, p. 59, no. 1.

90 F. R. Martin, ‘Two portraits by Behzad, the greatest painter of Persia’, Burlington Magazine XV, LXXIII (April 1909), p. 7.

91 Simpson, Arab and Persian Painting, cat. no. 26; Lentz and Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, col. il. on p. 243, cat. no. 136; Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, fig. 13, p. 59, no. 1; D. Roxburgh, ‘The pen of depiction: drawings of 15th- and 16th-century Iran’, in Studies in Islamic and Later Indian Art from the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2002), p. 49; Sims, E., Marshak, B. and Grube, E. J., Peerless Images, Persian Painting and its Sources (London, 2002), cat. 186Google Scholar, pp. 269–271.

92 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 49; see, in colour, Bahari, Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting, fig. 103 on p. 172.

93 Roxburgh sees the corrections made by the artist himself—preliminary lines drawn incorrectly then masked by lead pigment. See Roxburgh, ‘The pen of depiction’, p. 49. I have not seen the portrait at first hand and I cannot be sure if my impression is correct.

94 Roxburgh, ‘Disorderly conduct?’, p. 51, no. 3, fig. 16 on p. 40.

95 Ibid., p. 41.