The “Historical Style” of Painting for Shahrukh and Its Revival in the Dispersed Manuscript of Majmaʿ al-Tawarikh (original) (raw)

Processes of Depiction (tasvir): An Illustrated Manuscript of Yūsuf va Zulaykhā attributed to Mu‘in Musavvir

A previously unstudied illustrated manuscript of Jami’s Yusuf va Zulaykha (University of Michigan Isl. MS 358) includes a colophon attributing the book’s thirteen paintings to the seventeenth-century Persian artist Mu‘in Musavvir. Due to the manuscript’s deteriorated condition, the compositions’ underpaintings are visible and thus available for close scrutiny. These visual details aid in determining the hand of the artist within the complex production of the codex’s painted folios. Moreover, other visual materials related to the images suggest that the artist’s hand was not working alone or without visual aids. Indeed, some of the paintings present in Isl. MS 358 can be found in other Safavid albums of drawings and illustrated books, including a Judeo-Persian Yusuf and Zulaykha manuscript. This Safavid illustrated manuscript of Yusuf va Zulaykha opens several avenues for exploring the various tools and techniques used for painterly production in seventeenth-century Isfahan. The processes of depiction in book arts—including underpainting, image transfer, circulation, and copying—underscore the vast visual repertoire in which artists were skilled and upon which they drew to produce compositions. Artists trained and working within these pictorial practices emphasized artistic skill and visual acumen in repetition. Thus, identifying one master artist’s individual hand in a creative object must be understood within collaborative contexts, including the sharing and copying of images. Based on contemporaneous visual evidence and painterly practices, this paper argues that the artist Mu‘in Musavvir was the executor of the manuscript’s paintings. However, his output also must be simultaneously examined within the conceptual and material processes of image making shared by a number of artists in Safavid Isfahan.

"The Illustration of History in Persian Manuscripts"

Iran 56.1 (2018), pp. 47-67

Many medieval manuscripts are illuminated with paintings and other graphic elements, one purpose of which may have been to reinforce the significance of the work in question with a pictorial gloss, and perhaps also as a visual aid to convey its message for the benefit of readers who may not always have been literate. Reading the text through pictures is a matter of particular interest in the case of historical literature, as chronicles often commissioned at court lend themselves especially well to a deliberate programme of enhancing the image of the ruler and celebrating his deeds according to the political concepts and ideological imperatives of the time. This paper addresses the question of the illustration of historical texts within the Persian tradition of book art, focusing on the Jami' al-tawarikh of Rashid al-Din and its impact on later productions.

The Topkapı Manuscript of the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārikh (Hazine 1654) from Rashidiya to the Ottoman Court: A Preliminary Analysis

Iranian Studies

The famous Persian version of the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārikh (Hazine 1654) has never been studied with the care it deserves. Since its transcription was completed a year before Rashid al-Din’s execution, it remained unfinished while approximately seven illustrations were inserted into it, and the locations of other illustrations were left blank. Careful examination of the manuscript reveals that almost all of the empty spaces left for narrative illustrations were painted during the last decades of the fourteenth century. Having decided to improve the quality of the manuscript, the kitābkhāna of Shāhrukh, in the fifteenth century, completed the missing passages of text and restored or overpainted some of its illustrations. The dedicatory inscription of Farhād Khān Qarāmānlu indicates that the manuscript was refurbished again in the Safavid period. The last artistic additions to the manuscript were overpainting an illustration and insertion of two illuminated friezes in the Ottoman Istanbul. This paper, which is a result of close examination of the original manuscript, explains the complicated life history of the book.

Uluc, Thoughts on an Illustrated Copy of the Divan of Muhammad Khan Dashti from the 1270s (1853-1863), 2012

Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies 5/3 (2012): 231-247

Qajar painting is best known for its large images. These large images have generated most of the scholarly writing on Qajar figurative art. This was a natural outcome of the shift of emphasis from illustrated manuscripts that were the primary channel for the figurative arts of the Safavid era to life size paintings that were initiated by the Qajars. As a result, considerably more research is needed to understand the state of the arts of the book under Qaiar rule. This paper focuses on a previously unpublished manuscript of the Divan of Muhammad Khan Dashti dated to the 1270S (1853-1863), which has thirty textual illustrations that can be divided into two distinct groups: the former showing a number of amorous couples, and the latter comprising of images of the Karbala incident. The discussion of the combination of the usual and the idiosyncratic found in these images aims to shed further light on the production and consumption of both manuscripts and figurative art in the Qajar era.

Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi: The Master Illustrator of Persian Lithographed Books in the Qajar Period. Vol. 1

2022

Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi is the unsurpassed master of the art of illustration in Persian lithographed books of the Qajar period, both in terms of quality and quantity of production. In the decade of documented activity, 1263–72/1846–55, the artist produced more than 2,300 single images in about 70 books, plus hundreds of minutely executed small images on the margins of several books and numerous illuminated chapter headings. Prepared by Ulrich Marzolph together with Roxana Zenhari, the present publication is a comprehensive assessment of the artist’s work.