Persian & Indian Paintings

PERSIAN & INDIAN PAINTINGS francesca galloway new york, spring 2018 www.francescagalloway.com 2 We would like to thank J.P. Losty for researching and cataloguing the Indian paintings and Andrew Butler-Wheelhouse for doing the same for the Persian section. Acknowledgments Misha Anikst, Danielle Beilby, Gino Franchi, Marcus Fraser, Will Kwiatkowski, Alex Langer Helen Loveday, Joshua O’Driscoll, Matt Pia Prudence Cuming & Associates, Christine Ramphal Eleanor Sims, Robert Skelton 3 1 Khusraw and Gol seated in a garden, from Attar’s Khusraw-nameh India, second half of 15th century Gouache heightened with gold on paper Painting 21.5 × 12.5 cm Folio 28.2 × 16.3 cm Though the manuscript from which this well as the vocalization have been com- leaf originates has also been attributed to pared to that of a copy of a Ni’mat-nameh Ottoman Turkey and Iran, there is now a made in Mandu in c. 1495–1505 (see J.P. consensus that it was made in India Losty, Art of the Book in India, London, sometime in the second half of the 1982, no. 41, p. 67). 15th-century. Though the figures are clearly based on contemporary Iranian The leaf comes from a very rare illustrated models, there are various indications of copy of the Khusraw-nameh of Farid an Indian origin. Particularly noticeable al-Din Attar, which concerns the love of here is the unusual and exuberant Khusraw, the emperor of Rum, for Gol, vegetation: whereas in Persian paintings the daughter of the king of Khuzistan. of the period solid gold was typically used Here the lovers are seen seated together to fill the sky above the horizon, the artist in a garden. here has misunderstood the concept and filled it with an extravagantly blossoming Other leaves from this manuscript were bush and clusters of flowering vegetation. sold at Christie’s (16 October 1980, lot 55, No doubt this impulse came from what & 13 April 2010, lot 70), and at Sotheby’s B.W. Robinson has described as the (28 April 2004, lot 50, & 9 October 2013, Indian “abhorrence” for blank space. For lot 211). B.W. Robinson’s discussion of Indian manuscripts illustrated in a basically Though it is frequently alleged that the Persian style with various tell-tale local three leaves belonging to Stuart Cary influences, see B.W. Robinson, Fifteenth- Welch sold at Sotheby’s in lots 175–177 Century Persian Painting: Problems and (12 December 1972) originated from this Issues, New York and London, 1991, pp. manuscript, they appear to belong rather 65–67. For a similarly extravagant flower- to a Sultanate copy of Nizami’s Khamsah. ing bush, see an anthology made from 15th century India in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, published in ibid., fig. 21. Another unusual feature of the manuscript is the use of naskh script, which in Iran by this point had fallen out of fashion for the copying of verse in favour of nasta’liq. It continued, however, to be used in Sultanate India, and this hand as 4 2 Iskandar dismounts a Russian warrior, from Nizami’s Khamsah Shiraz, c. 1490 Opaque watercolour on paper Painting 11 × 14 cm Folio 30 × 18.8 cm This leaf from a copy of Nizami’s Khamsah Beatty Library: A Catalogue of the Persian Provenance is illustrated in the bright Turkoman Manuscripts and Miniatures, Volume II, Kevorkian Collection commercial style of late-15th-century Mss. 151–200, Dublin, 1960, no. 171, PL. 14). Private collection, Switzerland Shiraz. According to B.W. Robinson, this style probably originated in North-West The patterning of the costumes and the Exhib ited Iran under Turkman patronage in the first rendering of the landscape, here, however, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2001 half of the 15th century and spread with is much more detailed and colourful than the eastward expansion of Turkman rule in those copies mentioned above and (B.W. Robinson, Fifteenth-Century Persian most other manuscripts in this style, Painting: Problems and Issues, New York & where they are often executed rather London, 1991, p. 23). However, with the perfunctorily. Many of the costumes here development of new styles under the are decorated with large, extravagant gold rulers Pir Budaq and Sultan Khalil, this buds and floral scroll, and the soldiers’ and style fell out of favour in court ateliers; it horses’ armour has been richly decorated continued to develop in Shiraz, on the with variety and detail; the saddle of the other hand, where it became the reigning dismounted Russian, for example, has idiom for manuscripts produced in the been executed with the kind of medal- last quarter of the 15th-century. Copies of lions, rosettes and cloud bands found on Nizami’s Khamsah as well as Firdawsi’s tooled leather bindings of the period, and Shahnameh were particularly popular, and the contrasting gold and steel of Iskandar’s B.W. Robinson lists around one hundred armour is also striking. dated manuscripts in this style (ibid., p. 39). The scene has been rendered with a Typical of manuscripts in this style are the degree of humour that raises the manu- tall, narrow text block, the high landscape script above the occasionally routine man- filled with dense, green foliage, and the uscripts of the period; the Russian is figures with large, round faces, bulbous suspended by Iskandar’s lasso in mid-air, turbans and costumes of patterned while his alarmed steed is already rushing textiles. For comparable copies of the forward with its ears pinned back. Khamsah, see one copied in Shiraz in 1490, now in the Topkapi Palace Library, H. Another folio, possibly from the same 1008/K.416 (Ivan Stchoukine, Les peintures Nizami’s Khamsah, is in the David Collec- des manuscrits de la Khamseh de Nizami au tion (Inv. 43/1981) dated Shiraz 1500-1510 Topkapi Saray Müzesi d’Istanbul, Paris, 1977, (von Folsach, K., For the Privileged Few no. XVII, PLL. L.LI), and another copied in – Islamic Miniature Paintings from the David 1492, now in the Chester Beatty Library, Collection, 2007, no. 27). Dublin (A.J. Arberry (ed.), The Chester 5 3 Shirin visits Farhad in the mountains, from Nizami’s Khusrau and Shirin Safavid Shiraz, mid- 16th century Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, with six lines of of nasta’liq script above and two below, catchword, the reverse with 21 lines of elegant black nasta’liq script Painting 17.4 × 14.5 cm Text panel 20.1 × 11 cm Folio 30.6 × 19.4 cm Farhad dressed in a blue tunic with the fresh milk from the goats that graze up in trousers rolled up, approaches Shirin who the high mountains and Farhad upon is elegantly dressed in fine robes astride a hearing this carves an elaborate channel black horse. Farhad offers Shirin a pitcher for the milk to flow from the mountains of milk which is the fruit of his impossi- down to a pool at the side of Shirin’s ble labour of carving a channel of milk in palace. This labour of love is an extraordi- the mountains. Behind the couple is a nary show of devotion. engraving of them in the mountainside produced by Farhad, while Shirin’s lady The artist who produced this detailed companions on the left and a shepherd work is clearly the same artist who and his goat observe from the rocky worked on the lavishly illustrated copy of mountain above. The scene is set against Sultan Husain Mirza’s majlis al-‘ushshaq a gold background with flowering plants ‘assembly of lovers’ dated to the equiva- and trees, with six lines of nasta’liq script lent of 1552 ce and in the collection of the above and two below divided into four Bodleian Library, (inv. MS. Ouseley Add. columns by gold and blue rules, catch- 24, Robinson, B.W. A Descriptive Catalogue word, the reverse with 21 lines of elegant of the Persian Paintings in the Bodleian black nasta’liq script divided into four Library, Oxford University Press, London, columns with a heading in blue nastaliq 1958, p. 97). The artist, who B.W. Robinson script on a ground of vines issuing gold referred to as ‘Artist B’ clearly had a talent and polychrome foliage for portraiture as can be seen in the remarkably fine depiction of Farhad and Farhad, the innocent and ill-fated admirer Shirin which has been etched into the of Shirin, is a master stonemason and rocky landscape of this painting. The talented sculptor. The various tools of his angle of Farhad’s head looking up at trade are depicted behind him at the foot Shirin on her horse is echoed closely in of the rockface where Farhad has carved an illustration by the same artist in the an idealised image of himself with his majlis al-‘ushshaq manuscript, (Scollay, beloved Shirin into the side of the moun- Susan (ed.); Love & Devotion from Persia tain. Farhad approaches Shirin with a and Beyond, Bodleian Library Press, golden cup containing milk from the Oxford, 2012, fig. 7.3, p. 86). The majlis goats that can be seen high up on the al-‘ushshaq manuscript in the Bodleian is horizon. Shirin expressed a desire to have the earliest known dated illustrated copy 6 of the text. The illustrations in the Bodle- Provenance ian copy served as the model for most Ex Kevorkian Collection, sold Sotheby’s other illustrated versions of the text London, 21 April 1980, lot 59 which were produced in the second half Private collection, Switzerland of the 16th century, (ibid., pp. 83–84). The artists therefore that worked on the Exhibited Bodleian manuscript and our painting Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2001 were some of the most proficient artists of the Shiraz school in the mid-16th century, whose creativity and talent would be imitated and reproduced for the rest of the century.

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