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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2022
I do not begin at the beginning, since whatever one wishes to speak of so often follows some significant precursor, but to make a start: F. R. Martin's The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey, from the 8th to the 18th Century was published in 1912. Martin describes his book as ‘purely prefactory to a knowledge of a hitherto neglected section of art’. It is an éminence grise, a great slab of a book presumably intended mainly for collectors and so perhaps rather intimidating to students of later ages, but containing a great deal of information, a little of which we would now see as incorrect, and a large collection of illustrations in black-and-white that continue to be useful. There is considerable focus on the work of individual artists and, in particular, attributions to Bihzad abound. Already from the title it is clear that Martin sees the painting of Iran, of (Muslim) India, and of (Ottoman) Turkey as a continuum. The question of whether these areas can—or should—be considered together or severally continues to arise, and must, I think, be decided for each particular occasion. Two other monumental books that, between them, demonstrate this question of choice are Arménag Sakisian's La miniature persane du XIIe au XVIIe siècle and E. Blochet's Musulman Painting XIIth–XVIIth Century, both of 1929.
1 Martin, F. R., The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey, from the 8th to the 18th Century (London, 1912; reprinted, London, 1968)Google Scholar. Martin's main error is the conflation of the painters Mirak Khurasani and Agha Mirak, p. 51. It is not the purpose here to enlarge on his other failings.
2 Sakisian, Arménag, La miniature persane du XIIe au XVIIe siècle (Paris and Brussels, 1929)Google Scholar; Blochet, E., Musulman Painting XIIth–XVIIth Century (London, 1929)Google Scholar.
3 Martin, F. R., Les miniatures de Behzad dans un manuscrit persan daté 1485 (Munich, 1912)Google Scholar. The manuscript is now Pers. 163, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.
4 F. R. Martin, Miniatures from the Period of Timur in a MS of the Poems of Sultan Ahmad Jalair (Vienna, 1926). The illustrations are now F1932.30-37, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
5 Martin, F. R. and Arnold, Thomas, The Nizami MS. Illuminated by Bihzad, Mirak and Qasim Ali, written 1495 for Sultan Ali Barlās ruler of Samarqand in the British Museum (Or. 6810) (Vienna, 1926)Google Scholar.
6 Binyon, Laurence, The Poems of Nizami (London, 1928)Google Scholar.
7 Arnold, T., Bihzād and His Paintings in the Zafar-nāmah MS (London, 1930)Google Scholar.
8 J. V. S. Wilkinson and L. Binyon, The Shāhnāmah of Firdausī with 24 illustrations from a fifteenth-century manuscript formerly in the Imperial Library, Delhi and now in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1931).
9 L. Binyon, J. V. S. Wilkinson and Basil Gray, Persian Miniature Painting (Ontario and London, 1933; reprinted, New York, 1971). The Bibliothèque Nationale and the British Museum both refused to lend from their holdings (p. 10).
10 L. Binyon and T. Arnold, The Court Painters of the Grand Moguls (London, 1921); Percy Brown, Indian Painting under the Mughals A.D. 1550 to A.D 1750 (Oxford, 1924; reprinted, New Delhi, 1981).
11 Ernst Kühnel and Hermann Goetz, Indische Buchmalerei: aus dem Jahângîr-Album der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin, 1924).
12 Stchoukine, Ivan, La peinture indienne à l’époque des Grands Moghols (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar.
13 Wilkinson, J. V. S., Lights of Canopus (London, 1929)Google Scholar.
14 Robinson, B. W., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Paintings in the Bodleian Library (London, 1958)Google Scholar.
15 V. Minorsky and J. V. S. Wilkinson, The Chester Beatty Library: A Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts and Miniatures (Dublin, 1958); A. J. Arberry, M. Minovi and E. Blochet, The Chester Beatty Library: A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, I (Dublin, 1959); M. Minovi, B. W. Robinson, J. V. S. Wilkinson and E. Blochet, Persian, II (Dublin, 1960); A. J. Arberry, B. W. Robinson, E. Blochet and J. V. S. Wilkinson, Persian, III (Dublin, 1962).
16 I. Stchoukine, Barbara Flemming, Paul Luft and Hanna Sohrweide, Verzeichnis der Orientalishen Handschriften in Deutschland: Illuminierte Islamische Handschriften (Wiesbaden, 1971).
17 I. Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits tîmûrides (Paris, 1954); Les peintures des manuscrits safavis de 1503 à 1587 (Paris, 1959); Les peintures des manuscrits de ShāhʿAbbās 1er à la fin des Ṣafavīs (Paris, 1964); La peinture turque d'après les manuscrits illustrés, 1er partie (Paris, 1966); La peinture turque d'après les manuscrits illustrés, IIme partie (Paris, 1971); Les peintures des manuscrits de la ‘Khamseh' de Niẓâmî au Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi d’Istanbul (Paris, 1977).
18 Karl Khandalava and Moti Chandra, New Documents of Indian Painting—A Reappraisal (Bombay, 1969); Irma L. Fraad and Richard Ettinghausen, ‘Sultanate painting in Persian style, primarily from the first half of the fifteenth century. A preliminary study’, in Chhavi: Golden Jubilee Volume, Bharat Kala Bhavan, 1920–1970 (Benares, 1971), pp. 48–66.
19 Ettinghausen, R., Arab Painting (Geneva, etc., 1962)Google Scholar; B. Gray, Persian Painting (Geneva, etc., 1961). The Skira series also included works on the painting of India and Central Asia, but not of Turkey.
20 Titley, Norah M., Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts. A Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings in the British Library and British Museum (London, 1977)Google Scholar.
21 Priscilla Parsons Soucek, ‘Illustrated Manuscripts of Nizami's Khamseh: 1386–1482’, unpublished PhD dissertation, New York University, 1971.
22 I. Stchoukine, B. W. Robinson, E. J. Grube, G. M. Meredith-Owens and R. W. Skelton, Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book (London, 1976).
23 Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, ‘Le roman de Varqe et Golšâh: Essai sur les rapports de l'esthétique littéraire et de l'esthétique plastique dans l'Iran pré-mongol, suivi de la traduction du poème’, Ars Asiatiques (numéro special) XXII (1970). Melikian-Chirvani's view that the manuscript was produced in Khurasan does not now meet total agreement.
24 B. Gray (ed.), The Arts of the Book in Central Asia (Paris and London, 1979). Unfortunately, some passages are misplaced.
25 Islamic Art initially received a grant from the Mehdi Mahboubian Foundation, with later support from the Bruschettini Foundation to the Islamic Art Foundation, New York; with editors Ernst J. Grube and Eleanor G. Sims, and, initially, John Carswell. Muqarnas, edited by Oleg Grabar, was sponsored by the Aga Khan programme for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
26 Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision (Los Angeles and Washington DC, 1989).
27 Wheeler M. Thackston (trans.), A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art (Cambridge MA, 1989).
28 Losty, Jeremiah P., The Art of the Book in India (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar's India: Art from the Mughal City of Victory (New York, 1985); S. C. Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300–1900 (New York, 1985); Milo C. Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India 1600–1660 (Williamstown, 1978); Milo C. Beach, The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court (Washington DC, 1981); Milo C. Beach, Early Mughal Painting (Cambridge MA, 1987).
29 Nurhan Atasoy and Filiz Çağman, Turkish Miniature Painting, (trans.) Esin Atil (Istanbul, 1974).
30 Titley, N., Miniatures from Turkish Manuscripts: Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings in the British Library and British Museum (London, 1981)Google Scholar.
31 Filiz Çağman and Zeren Tanındı, The Topkapı Saray Museum: The Albums and Illustrated Manuscripts, (trans.) J. M. Rogers (London, 1986).
32 J. M. Rogers and R. M. Ward, Süleyman the Magnificent (London, 1988).
33 Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama (Chicago and London, 1980); Abolala Soudavar, ‘The saga of Abu Saʿid Bahādor Khān: the Abu-Saʿidnamé’, in The Court of the Il-Khans 1290–1340, (eds) Julian Raby and Teresa Fitzherbert (Oxford, 1996), pp. 95–218.
34 Martin Bernard Dickson and Stuart Cary Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh (Cambridge, MA and London, 1981). Its illustrations in black-and-white are now superseded for the purposes of picture reference by Sheila R. Canby, The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp (New York, 2011).
35 Blair, Sheila, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art: A Compendium of Chronicles (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Ibid., pp. 16–27.
37 Marianna Shreve Simpson, with contributions from Massumeh Farhad, Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Aurang. A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran (New Haven and London 1997).
38 Barbara Brend, Islamic Art (London, 1991); Barbara Brend and Muhammad Isa Waley, The Emperor Akbar's Khamsa of Nizāmī (London, 1995).
39 On one occasion bringing a box of slides on the wrong topic but feeling obliged to lecture from it.
40 Brend, Barbara, Perspectives on Persian Painting. Illustrations to the Amīr Khusrau's Khamsah (London, 2003)Google Scholar.
41 Patricia L. Baker and Barbara Brend (eds), Shifting Sands, Reading Signs: Studies in Honour of Professor Géza Fehérvárí (London, 2006).
42 The Sháhnáma of Firdausí done into English by Arthur George Warner, M.A. and Edmond Warner, M.A. (London, 1905–25, reprinted London, 2000). Barbara Brend, Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah of Firdausi (London, 2010). Barbara Brend and Charles Melville, Epic of the Persian Kings: The Art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (London, 2010).
43 Farhad Mehran, ‘The break-line verse: the link between text and image in the “first small” Shahnama’, in Pembroke Papers: Shahnama Studies, Vol. I, (ed.) C. Melville (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 151–169.
44 Yuri Y. Petrosian, Stuart Cary Welch, Anatoly Ivanov and Oleg Akimushkin, The St. Petersburg Muraqqaʿ; Album of Indian and Persian Miniatures from the 16th through the 18th Century and Specimens of Persian Calligraphy by ʿImād al-Ḥasanī (Lugano and Milano, 1996).
45 Wheeler Thackston and David J. Roxburgh, Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters (Leiden, Boston and Köln, 2001); D. J. Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran (Leiden, Boston and Köln, 2005).
46 Elaine Wright et al., Muraqqaʿ: Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library (Alexandria, VA, 2008).
47 Adamova, Adel, Persian Manuscripts, Paintings and Drawings from the 15th to the early 20th Century in the Hermitage Collection (London 2012)Google Scholar; A. Adamova and Manijeh Bayani, The Arts of the Book and Portraiture (London and Kuwait, 2015).
48 James White, ‘A sign of the end time: “The Monastery”, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi H. 2153 f.131b’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 27.1 (2017), pp. 1–30.
49 shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk; islamicpaintedpage.com
50 Sponsored by the Iran Heritage Foundation.
51 I am engaged with the copies of the Khamsah of Nizami Add. 25900 and Or. 6810, both of which make appearances in Martin, Miniature Painting and Painters.