API tools faq
paste
Advertisement
jonstond2

Timurid Art and Architecture (Art History)

jonstond2
Mar 15th, 2018
312
0
Never
Add comment
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 109.09 KB | None | 0 0
raw download clone embed print report
  1. Introduction
  2. The Timurid dynasty (1370–1506) emerged from the confederation of nomadic tribes making up the Ulus Chaghatay in central Asia. In its political and social structure and cultural traditions, the Ulus Chaghatay shared much in common with the preceding regional political entity, the Chaghatay Khanate, first created by Genghis Khan in 1227, which endured until 1363 as one political unit of the Mongol Empire. The founder of the Timurid dynasty, Timur (b. c. 1336–d. 1405) (Timur-i Lang in Persian, Tamerlane in English), grew up within the Ulus Chaghatay and embarked on a series of campaigns in central Asia, the Middle East, and India. A final campaign was directed toward China, but was cut short when Timur died in 1405. While Timur supported many of the political institutions and traditions of the Turko-Mongols—like any other would-be leader Timur was forced to work within a preexisting framework endemically resistant to centralized rule and primogeniture—he was hampered by a line of descent that did not directly stem from Genghis Khan. To remedy this, he cultivated an enhanced bloodline by marriage to women of prestigious Genghisid descent and supported the institutions of Turko-Mongol society. Though his personal charisma and military acumen, as well as specific military tactics, closely emulated attributes and actions of Genghis Khan, Timur’s ambitions were different. Unlike Genghis Khan, Timur showed no interest in establishing permanent presence in the steppe lands of nomadic life, but set out to control the settled lands he conquered. To maintain power, Timur balanced the institutions and political symbols of the Turko-Mongol aristocracy of amirs, military commanders, against those of the settled populations with its bureaucratic, religious, and mercantile structures. Though some of his descendants enjoyed long periods of rule—Shahrukh (r. 1409–1447), Sultan Husayn (r. 1469–1506)—they lacked his strategic brilliance and faced internal challenges from various quarters. Buying favor, for example, through the abuse of the income-free grant (soyurghal) resulted in the depletion of state revenues. Over the 15th century, Timurid hegemony dwindled with a loss of territory to the ascendant Qaraqoyunlu (Black Sheep) Turkmen confederation and the Aqqoyunlu (White Sheep). Ultimately, the Timurid dynasty was eclipsed by the Safavid dynasty of Iran and by the Uzbeks of central Asia in the first decade of the 16th century. From the beginning, the Timurids used art and architecture to enhance personal and courtly life and develop urban infrastructure for the community and its constituencies. Art and architecture enhanced the prestige and legitimacy of the Timurid house in highly self-conscious ways. In forming these objects, buildings, and cultural programs, Timurid patrons were benefited by practitioners of various specializations (visual arts, architecture, literature, etc.) who forged new, innovative artworks and monuments by a studied engagement with past traditions. The collective achievement of Timurid art and architecture, its aura of artistic brilliance and cultivation, defined a new benchmark of excellence that was not lost on contemporary dynasties (Qaraqoyunlu, Aqqoyunlu, and Ottomans). Subsequent dynasties of Iran, central Asia, and India also reckoned with the Timurid achievement and worked through it to find their own artistic voice and dynastic expression.
  3.  
  4. General Overviews
  5. Most introductory surveys of Islamic art and architecture devote chapters to the art and architecture of the Timurid dynasty. The essays in Blair and Bloom 1994 are among the best, and most engaging, synthetic treatments. Dealing only with the arts of the book and calligraphy, Habibi 1976 gives a good sense through its comprehensive presentation of the scope of artworks and the practitioners who made them (as well as some of their patrons), in a straightforward account of the culture of the book and literature. It is rare for an exhibition catalogue to define a field of study and to maintain its salience decades after the event it recorded has ended. But Lentz and Lowry 1989 succeeds in both. The exhibition assembled a wide range of artworks from the entire period of Timurid rule and explored them through a series of ideas and themes, organizing them under several paradigms that in many ways continue to define the scholarship today.
  6.  
  7. Blair, Sheila S., and Jonathan M. Bloom. The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250–1800. Yale University Press Pelican History of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
  8.  
  9. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  10.  
  11. This survey of Islamic art and architecture includes two well-illustrated chapters devoted to the architecture and art of the Timurid dynasty. It is especially useful as an introductory text and for general readers because it highlights key artworks and monuments as well as important artistic developments and trends.
  12.  
  13. Find this resource:
  14.  
  15. Habibi, ‘Abd al-Hayy. Hunar-i ‘ahd-i Timuriyan va mutafarra’at-i an. Tehran, Iran: Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 2535 (1976).
  16.  
  17. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  18.  
  19. Introduction (in Persian) to Timurid-period arts of the book, calligraphy, and literature. Especially useful are the chapters devoted to calligraphy and bookmaking, and to Timurid manuscripts in collections and museums in Afghanistan. Appendices list names of artists and calligraphers of the period and canonical works of literature.
  20.  
  21. Find this resource:
  22.  
  23. Lentz, Thomas W., and Glenn D. Lowry. Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century. Los Angeles and Washington, DC: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
  24.  
  25. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  26.  
  27. Seminal exhibition that spanned the full chronology of Timurid art and architecture, developed many of the organizing concepts that framed the material’s study for the following twenty years, and investigated the relation of Timurid artistic production to their dynastic forebears and the impact of their achievements on contemporary and later dynasties between Anatolia and south Asia.
  28.  
  29. Find this resource:
  30.  
  31. Timurid Historiography
  32. These books and articles on the history of the Timurid period are suggested as essential background readings to the political, social, religious, economic, and cultural developments that took place between c. 1370 and 1506. The entries range from the presentation of diverse aspects of Timurid society and culture, as in Jackson and Lockhart 1986 and Bartol’d 1956–1962, to more chronologically circumscribed analyses of the reigns of Timur, Shahrukh, and Sultan Husayn in Manz 1989, Manz 2007, and Subtelny 2002 and Subtelny 2007, respectively. Woods 1976 studies shifts in the balance of power—and territorial control—between the Timurid dynasty and the contemporary Turkmen dynasties (Qaraqoyunlu and Aqqoyunlu) of western Iran, Azerbaijan, and southeastern Anatolia. Other sources include: Woods 1990, a critical reference work on the makeup of the Timurid dynasty; Savory 1965, a synoptic essay that summarizes the complex transitions of rule characteristic of the Timurid period highlighting the endemic instability of its political formations; and Woods 1987, on the role played by historiography in securing the Timurid dynasty’s legitimacy and authority from the reign of Timur to that of Shahrukh.
  33.  
  34. Bartol’d, V. V. Four Studies on the History of Central Asia. 3 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1956–1962.
  35.  
  36. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  37.  
  38. Composed of three volumes devoted to a history of Turkestan; the formation of the Mongol Empire, Ulus Chaghatay, and Ulugh Beg (grandson of Timur and governor of Samarqand); and the history of the Turkmen, focusing on ‘Ali Shir Nava’i, the late Timurid-period statesman and cultural patron. The volumes are condensations of the scholar’s vast research.
  39.  
  40. Find this resource:
  41.  
  42. Jackson, Peter, and Laurence Lockhart, eds. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  43.  
  44. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  45.  
  46. Although some of the models and conclusions are now outdated, the chapters in the volume still offer the most comprehensive and synthetic source available for readers on the subjects of history, trade, socioeconomic affairs, science, religion, art, and architecture.
  47.  
  48. Find this resource:
  49.  
  50. Manz, Beatrice Forbes. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  51.  
  52. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  53.  
  54. Based on a thorough analysis of primary sources, Manz describes Timur’s transformation of the tribal federation making up the Chaghatay khanate of the later 1300s into a polity that gave its loyalty and support to the dynastic founder through his reign until his death in 1405. The book also explores the structure of Timur’s administration and examines the fight for succession that raged from 1405 until c. 1409.
  55.  
  56. Find this resource:
  57.  
  58. Manz, Beatrice Forbes. Power, Politics, and Religion in Timurid Iran. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  59.  
  60. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497483Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  61.  
  62. The sequel to the study of Timur (Manz 1989) focusing on his son and successor Shahrukh (r. 1409–1447) who ruled from Herat. In this book, Manz examines the complex relationship between the Timurid government and society at large.
  63.  
  64. Find this resource:
  65.  
  66. Savory, Roger. “The Struggle for Supremacy in Persia after the Death of Timur.” Der Islam 40.1 (1965): 35–65.
  67.  
  68. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  69.  
  70. Study of the complex rivalries and internecine strife among the Turko-Mongol Timurids that ensued after Timur’s death in 1405, and that continued throughout the 1400s with the ascendant Turkmen confederations of the Qaraqoyunlu (Black Sheep), Aqqoyunlu (White Sheep), and Safavids who distributed territories among them as Timurid hegemony steadily waned.
  71.  
  72. Find this resource:
  73.  
  74. Subtelny, Maria E. Le monde est un jardin: aspects de l’histoire culturelle de l’Iran médiéval. Paris: Association pour l’Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 2002.
  75.  
  76. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  77.  
  78. A collection of essays on agriculture and irrigation, ethics in government, pious foundations (waqf), “Persian” gardens, and esotericism in Persian poetry. As the title of the volume suggests, there is strong thematic interconnectivity between these chapters.
  79.  
  80. Find this resource:
  81.  
  82. Subtelny, Maria E. Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. Brill’s Inner Asian Library. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  83.  
  84. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004160316.i-422Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  85.  
  86. Focused on the late rule of Timurid Sultan Husayn (r. 1469–1506), the volume develops several earlier studies by the author around the broad theme of agriculture and in relation to the question of why the Turko-Mongol Timurids pursued a series of transitions from nomadic empire to sedentary government.
  87.  
  88. Find this resource:
  89.  
  90. Woods, John E. The Aqquyunlu. Clan, Confederation, Empire: A Study in 15th/9th Century Turko-Iranian Politics. Studies in Middle Eastern History 3. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976.
  91.  
  92. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  93.  
  94. The book describes and analyzes the transformation of the Aqqoyunlu (White Sheep) Turkmen dynasty from its origins in the Bayandur clan to a tribal confederation by the mid-1300s and ultimate destruction by Safavid Shah Isma’il I (r. 1501–1524) and his supporters in the early 1500s. Reprinted with additions (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1999).
  95.  
  96. Find this resource:
  97.  
  98. Woods, John E. “The Rise of Timurid Historiography.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46.2 (1987): 81–108.
  99.  
  100. DOI: 10.1086/373225Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  101.  
  102. The many historical works composed during Timur’s life and immediately after his death are examined in contrast to the dearth of indigenous Chaghatayid historical works before the late 1300s. Essay includes detailed study of historians Nizam al-Din ‘Ali Shami, Taj al-Din Salmani, Mu’in al-Din Natanzi, Hafiz Abru, and Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  103.  
  104. Find this resource:
  105.  
  106. Woods, John E. The Timurid Dynasty. Papers on Inner Asia 14. Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1990.
  107.  
  108. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  109.  
  110. The monograph combines an introduction to the science of genealogy and its sponsorship through several works by members of the Timurid dynasty with an analysis of the Mu’izz al-ansab (The Glorifier of Genealogies), initially commissioned by Shahrukh and completed in 1426. Extant manuscripts continue the genealogical record into the late Timurid period.
  111.  
  112. Find this resource:
  113.  
  114. Anthologies and Edited Volumes
  115. The critical mass of scholarship on Timurid art and architecture published between 1987 and 1989 is further enhanced by two collections of essays published in a special issue of Asian Art 1989 and Golombek and Subtelny 1992. Only a few years later, Bernardini 1996, yet another conference proceeding on Timurid history, art, and culture appeared in print. Several essays from these publications appear in this article but there are many others that make important contributions to the study of art and architecture.
  116.  
  117. Asian Art 2.2 (1989).
  118.  
  119. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  120.  
  121. Untitled special issue on Timurid art and architecture, published in conjunction with the exhibition “Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century,” the volume includes essays on the Timurid dynasty, Timur’s reception in the West, architecture sponsored by Timur, and the art of manuscript painting. The well-illustrated essays are intended for the general reader.
  122.  
  123. Find this resource:
  124.  
  125. Bernardini, Michele, ed. Special Issue: La civiltà Timuride come fenomeno internazionale. 2 vols. Oriente Moderno n.s. 15.2 (1996).
  126.  
  127. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  128.  
  129. Conference proceedings with papers divided into sections on history, Timur in the West, literature, and art. Of these, the group of essays on Timur’s reception in the West stands out as the most innovative.
  130.  
  131. Find this resource:
  132.  
  133. Golombek, Lisa, and Maria E. Subtelny, eds. Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Selected papers from the symposium “Timurid and Turkmen Societies in Transition,” held in conjunction with the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Toronto, 15–18 November 1989. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  134.  
  135. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  136.  
  137. Papers from a symposium that coincided with the exhibition “Timur and the Princely Vision” and the near-contemporary monographs on Timurid architecture in Golombek and Wilber 1988 and O’Kane 1987 (both cited under Architecture). To the volume’s merit, most essays propose new directions for thinking and offer innovative interpretations.
  138.  
  139. Find this resource:
  140.  
  141. Primary Sources
  142. Study of Timurid art and architecture is significantly enhanced by the rich and extensive corpus of primary written sources composed by contemporary historians, biographers, ambassadors, and artists, among others. This selection is merely a modest sampling of them. Some sense of the scope and potential of written sources—and an introduction to their breadth of genres and content—is conveyed by the source anthologies compiled in Thackston 1989 and Thackston 2001, which also provide substantial bibliographies and annotations pointing to the main sources in their original languages. Clavijo 2005 (originally published in 1928) and Hafiz Abru 1970 present translations of reports stemming from embassies, whereas Arnold 1930, Ja’fari 1353, Özergin 1976, Porter 1985, and Qazvini and Bouvat 1914 delve into individual historical works and unique documents—some of them preserved through manuals of epistolography—related to artists’ biographies, the Timurid workshop, and the materials and techniques of calligraphers. A still wider array of sources is listed in an appendix to Gray 1979 (cited under Arts of the Book), compiled by ‘Abd al-Hayy Habibi.
  143.  
  144. Arnold, T. W. “Mirza Muhammad Haydar Dughlat on the Harat School of Painters.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 5.4 (1930): 671–674.
  145.  
  146. DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X00090443Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147.  
  148. Muhammad Haydar Dughlat (b. 1499–d. 1551), known more commonly as Mirza Haydar, completed his history of the Khans of Moghulistan in 1546. The text contains several references to artists and calligraphers. Arnold focuses on the history as its text pertains to artists. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  149.  
  150. Find this resource:
  151.  
  152. Clavijo, Ruy González de. Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406. Translated by Guy Le Strange. Broadway Travellers 7. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.
  153.  
  154. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155.  
  156. Narrative of the journey, spanning 1403 and 1405, made by King Henry III of Castile’s embassy to Timur. The text offers rich descriptions of Timurid Shahr-i Sabz and Samarqand, courtly ceremonies and feasts staged in gardens, tented encampments, and palaces culminating in the great “assembly” (quriltay) of 1404. Originally published in 1928 (New York: Harper and Brothers).
  157.  
  158. Find this resource:
  159.  
  160. Hafiz Abru. A Persian Embassy to China: Being an Extract from Zubdatu’t Tawarikh of Hafiz Abru. Translated by K. M. Maitra with a new introduction by L. Carrington. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1970.
  161.  
  162. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163.  
  164. This translation of the travel diary (ruznama) left by the artist Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash from Herat to Beijing retains its value, despite the more recent translation in Thackston 2001, because it is based on a recension preserved in one of the histories composed by Hafiz Abru.
  165.  
  166. Find this resource:
  167.  
  168. Ja’fari, Husayn Mir. “Namahai az Kamal al-Din Bihzad bi-Padishah-i Safavi.” Hunar va mardum 142 (1353): 6–11.
  169.  
  170. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171.  
  172. Facsimile and discussion of an undated letter sent by the artist Bihzad to Safavid Shah Isma’il I (r. 1501–1524). Other texts are introduced and analyzed as sources for Bihzad’s biography.
  173.  
  174. Find this resource:
  175.  
  176. Özergin, M. Kemal. “Temürlü sanatina âit eski bir belge: Tebrizli Ca’fer’in bir arzi.” Sanat Tarihi Yilligi 6 (1976): 471–518.
  177.  
  178. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  179.  
  180. Comprehensive presentation of the progress report (‘arzadasht) thought to date to c. 1430, to have been composed by Ja’far al-Tabrizi, and directed to Prince Baysunghur. The document enumerates the status of projects underway in the workshop and elsewhere. Özergin includes the Persian text, Turkish translation, commentary, and an analysis of terms.
  181.  
  182. Find this resource:
  183.  
  184. Porter, Yves. “Un Traité de Simi Neysâpuri (IXe/XVe S.), Artiste et Polygraphe.” Studia Iranica 14.2 (1985): 179–198.
  185.  
  186. DOI: 10.2143/SI.14.2.2014649Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  187.  
  188. Porter gathers the biographical sources for Simi Nishapuri and examines the various manuscript recensions of his treatise on the secretarial arts titled Jawhar-i Simi (Simi’s Jewel), completed in 1435.
  189.  
  190. Find this resource:
  191.  
  192. Qazvini, Mirza Muhammad, and L. Bouvat. “Deux documents inédits relatif à Behzad.” Revue du monde musulman 26 (1914): 146–161.
  193.  
  194. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195.  
  196. Qazvini and Bouvat offer translations of two documents connected to the artist Kamal al-Din Bihzad. The first is a preface by the Timurid historian Khvandamir to introduce an album compiled by Bihzad; the second is a letter dated 24 April 1522 requesting that Bihzad come to Tabriz and head the royal workshop (kitabkhana-yi humayun) late in the reign of Safavid Shah Isma’il I.
  197.  
  198. Find this resource:
  199.  
  200. Thackston, Wheeler M., ed. A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art. Translated by Wheeler M. Thackston. Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989.
  201.  
  202. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203.  
  204. An anthology of Persian language primary sources translated into English with commentary and annotations. The selections span the genres of history, biography, embassy narrative, album preface, and include miscellaneous shorter documents such as the progress report (‘arzadasht) on activities of the Herat workshop (kitabkhana).
  205.  
  206. Find this resource:
  207.  
  208. Thackston, Wheeler M. Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters. Studies and Sources in Islamic Art and Architecture 10. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001.
  209.  
  210. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211.  
  212. Persian transcription and English translation with commentaries on a corpus of prefaces composed to introduce album collections of paintings, drawings, and calligraphies. The volume also includes new translations of documents published in Thackston 1989.
  213.  
  214. Find this resource:
  215.  
  216. Architecture
  217. As a collective the Timurid elite was active in sponsoring architecture and included the ruler, his family (including female members), the amirs of Turko-Mongol society, and high-ranking members of the bureaucracy, among others. The architecture was often paid for with personal funds endowed in perpetuity as waqf. Architecture was necessary to maintain and enhance daily life, to support the foundations of Islam through its institutions of worship and learning, to enhance commerce and agriculture, but it provided many additional social benefits as well. Although the patronage of buildings was required of the ruler and his elite (it was something expected of them), this sponsorship does not begin to convey the specific and complex agency of Timurid architecture. Epigraphic evidence (the texts presented on building facades) in particular, indicates the extent to which Timurid society understood architecture as a legitimating tool—the public embodiment of the authority and prestige of the dynasty. Although aspects of Timurid architecture invoked the recent models constituted under patronage of the Ilkhanid Mongols of the late 1200s and early 1300s—in such aspects as monumentality, visibility, height, use of color—the early Timurid period witnessed the gathering in of various regional architectural traditions and practices (e.g., from southern and central Iran, Khvarazm, India). These traditions were steadily developed and became a codified architectural practice and aesthetic by the 1440s, distinctive from earlier monuments but legible through precedent. Architecture was used by its patrons for political and social ends and often targeted regionally to various confessional divisions within Islam, or locally to particular communities of users and believers. Although the balance between various forms of self-interest and piety is hardly unique to the Timurid setting, the evidence of its architecture and written sources is sufficiently rich to permit the detailed study of architecture, its nexus of patrons, makers, and users. The broad and synthetic studies provided in Golombek and Wilber 1988 and O’Kane 1987 set the study of Timurid architecture on an altogether new foundation by reviewing past scholarly traditions, approaches, and assessments and applying a keen depth of perception and experience to the subject. Study of the bibliographies in these works reveals the great debt that these and other scholars owe to the research of Soviet-era scholars working in central Asia, particularly Pugachenkova. Another work of comparable scope, though treating only the role of textiles, tents, and portable architectural forms under the Timurids is Andrews 1999. The very readable introductory book Pugachenkova 1981 covers many of the same themes and subjects used to organize Golombek and Wilber 1988, but at much reduced length and depth.
  218.  
  219. Andrews, Peter Alford. Felt Tents and Pavilions: The Nomadic Tradition and its Interaction with Princely Tentage. 2 vols. London: Melisende, 1999.
  220.  
  221. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  222.  
  223. Organized chronologically, this ambitious work spans the period from the 4th millennium BCE through the 19th century CE subdivided according to ethnic and tribal groupings. There are richly developed sections on the Mongols, Timurids, and Mughals. Andrews includes nomadic and princely tents and studies extant tentage—rare for the pre-Mughal periods—as well as written and visual sources.
  224.  
  225. Find this resource:
  226.  
  227. Golombek, Lisa, and Donald N. Wilber. The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
  228.  
  229. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  230.  
  231. The most complete presentation of Timurid architecture from Iran, Afghanistan, and central Asia. Analytical and synthetic chapters consider the political, social, economic, and aesthetic forces that shaped architecture, its historical development, style, and contemporary reception, accompanied by comprehensive catalogue entries of extant monuments, which are copiously illustrated with plans and photographs.
  232.  
  233. Find this resource:
  234.  
  235. O’Kane, Bernard. Timurid Architecture in Khurasan. Islamic Art and Architecture 3. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1987.
  236.  
  237. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  238.  
  239. The volume focuses on Timurid monuments in the province of Khurasan, spanning modern Iran and Afghanistan, taking a regional approach to architecture. Chapters focus on the political, economic, and cultural setting; building typology and function; and the methods and materials of construction, decoration, and patronage. A final chapter gauges the collective impact of Timurid architecture on later periods.
  240.  
  241. Find this resource:
  242.  
  243. Pugachenkova, Galina A. Chefs-d’oeuvre d’architecture de l’Asie Centrale, 14e-15e siècle. Paris: UNESCO, 1981.
  244.  
  245. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  246.  
  247. Intended for general readers, the book presents masterpieces of Timurid architecture from central Asia with a few from the province of Khurasan (presented in an album of photographs and plans). The synthetic introductory essay—dealing with patrons, architects, materials, form, and function—concludes with an assessment on the style of the period and the idea of a “Timurid Renaissance.”
  248.  
  249. Find this resource:
  250.  
  251. Cities
  252. Unsurprisingly, the greatest attention paid to the city in the Timurid period has been given to those sites with the greatest concentrations of Timurid monuments. Samarqand became capital under Timur and continued to be an important center despite the movement of the ruler and his court to Herat under Shahrukh (r. 1409–1447). Samarqand continued to be a focus of patronage under Ulugh Beg, Shahrukh’s son, and governor of the city, until his death in 1449. The history of Samarqand is treated in Smolik 1929 and Brandenburg 1972. Shahr-i Sabz, an important city under Timur despite Samarqand’s superiority, continued to be a locus of patronage throughout the governorship of Ulugh Beg (Masson, et al. 1953). There is a richer literature on the stages of Herat’s development, from the history of the city under the rule of the Karts (up to 1389) through the large-scale additions made by Shahrukh and his wife Gawhar Shad by the late 1400s, and later in the century by Sultan Husayn and ‘Ali Shir Nava’i through the early 1500s. The chief sources are Allen 1981, Allen 1983, and Brandenburg 1977. Yazd, in southern Iran, is also studied by Holod-Tretiak 1972 as a locus of patronage, particularly of the Muzaffarid, Timurid, and Qaraqoyunlu dynasties from the 1300s through 1450. The Petruccioli 2008 essay compares the urban forms and configuration of Samarqand and Bukhara.
  253.  
  254. Allen, Terry. A Catalogue of the Toponyms and Monuments of Timurid Herat. Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1981.
  255.  
  256. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  257.  
  258. Drawn from the catalogue of his doctoral thesis, Allen compiles a list of buildings, including infrastructure projects, in Timurid Herat including extant monuments and others attested in the rich array of primary written sources. The toponyms are organized by typology. The volume contains useful maps of the city and its hinterland.
  259.  
  260. Find this resource:
  261.  
  262. Allen, Terry. Timurid Herat. Wiesbaden, Germany: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1983.
  263.  
  264. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  265.  
  266. Allen presents an interpretive essay of the urban history of Timurid Herat in the 15th century always considering the ways in which the ancient city, plan, and water system continued to exert a force on new building. Discussion of the extramural development along the northern artery (khiyaban), and to the northeast during the reign of Sultan Husayn is especially rich.
  267.  
  268. Find this resource:
  269.  
  270. Brandenburg, Dietrich. Samarkand: Studien zur islamischen Baukunst in Uzbekistan (Zentralasien). Berlin: Hessling, 1972.
  271.  
  272. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  273.  
  274. A historical introduction of Samarqand spans the period between ancient times and the Uzbek Socialist Republic but the emphasis of the book lies in Timurid-period architecture. Monuments are divided according to functional type and presented through descriptive chapters. The book does not seem to reflect Russian scholarship of the Soviet era.
  275.  
  276. Find this resource:
  277.  
  278. Brandenburg, Dietrich. Herat: eine Timuridische Haupstadt. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck und Verlangsanstalt, 1977.
  279.  
  280. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  281.  
  282. Following the model of his book on Samarqand, Brandenburg opens with a history of Herat from the 10th century to modern times, presented through text, chronology, and genealogical tables, and divides his substantive chapters on the Timurid period into the subjects of architecture and gardens. Other chapters treat the themes of Herat as a town of mystics and poets and the “book academy,” or workshop (kitabkhana).
  283.  
  284. Find this resource:
  285.  
  286. Holod-Tretiak, Renata. “The Monuments of Yazd, 1300–1450: Architecture, Patronage, and Setting.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1972.
  287.  
  288. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  289.  
  290. Important for its study of architecture in Yazd, southern Iran, from the time of the Ilkhanid Mongols through the Muzaffarid and Timurid dynasties up to the mid-15th century. The study examines the history of Yazd and treats in detail key monuments in the cityscape.
  291.  
  292. Find this resource:
  293.  
  294. Masson, M. E., G. A. Pugachenkova. “Shakhri Syabz pri Timure i Ulug Beke (‘Shahr-i Sabz from Timur to Ulugh Beg’): I.” Translated by J. M. Rogers. Iran 16 (1953): 103–126.
  295.  
  296. DOI: 10.2307/4299651Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  297.  
  298. Continued in part 2, Iran 18 (1980): 121–43. A history of Shahr-i Sabz from the life of Timur to his grandson Ulugh Beg based on a broad variety of sources, including primary written sources, archaeological reports, and study of extant monuments. The essay remains the most thoroughgoing treatment of Shahr-i Sabz and its continuing significance to the Timurid dynasty after the founder’s death.
  299.  
  300. Find this resource:
  301.  
  302. Petruccioli, Attilio. “Bukhara and Samarkand.” In The City in the Islamic World. 2 vols. Edited by Salma K. Jayyusi, Renata Holod, Attilio Petruccioli, and André Raymond, 491–524. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
  303.  
  304. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004162402.i-1500Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  305.  
  306. Useful overview of the urban history of each city and critical commentary on prior studies. Each city is presented through its urban fabric and monuments, routes, and urban focal points.
  307.  
  308. Find this resource:
  309.  
  310. Smolik, Julius. Die timuridischen Baudenkmäler in Samarkand aus der Zeit Tamerlans. Vienna: Krystall Verlag, 1929.
  311.  
  312. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  313.  
  314. Though outdated in its interpretation, Smolik’s was among the first books dedicated to architecture in Samarqand that was constructed in the reign of Timur. The watercolor sketches, line drawings, and measured plans are valuable documents today, given the scope of conservation of these monuments in the modern period, but should be used with caution. They predate studies at the sites that revealed later historical accretions.
  315.  
  316. Find this resource:
  317.  
  318. Monuments
  319. The descriptive and analytical catalogues of Golombek and Wilber 1988 and O’Kane 1987 (both cited under Architecture) include individual entries on monuments in Iran, Afghanistan, and central Asia. The sources selected here—providing a distinct emphasis on shrines—offer longer treatments of some of the most important and interesting monuments and sites. These works include Golombek 1971, Golombek 1969, Man’kovskaia and Golombek 1985, Marefat 1991, Masson, et al. 1958, McChesney 2001, O’Kane 1976, and Pugachenkova 1963. O’Kane 1976 examines a madrasa.
  320.  
  321. Golombek, Lisa. The Timurid Shrine at Gazur Gah. Art and Archaeology Occasional Paper 15. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1969.
  322.  
  323. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  324.  
  325. Comprehensive discussion and analysis of the shrine complex that formed around the burial site of Khvaja ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari (d. 1089) at Gazur Gah, located a little more than a mile from Herat. The monograph focuses on Timurid patronage and construction during the reign of Shahrukh.
  326.  
  327. Find this resource:
  328.  
  329. Golombek, Lisa. “The Chronology of Turbat-i Shaykh Jām.” Iran 9 (1971): 27–44.
  330.  
  331. DOI: 10.2307/4300436Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  332.  
  333. A history of the development of the architectural complex that grew up around the burial site of Shaykh Ahmad b. Abu al-Hasan (b. 1049–d. 1141) located at Turbat Jam midway between Mashhad and Herat. Additions made by Timur and two amirs active during the reign of Shahrukh offer evidence of Timurid patronage. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  334.  
  335. Find this resource:
  336.  
  337. Man’kovskaia, L. Iu. “Towards the Study of Forms in Central Asian Architecture at the end of the Fourteenth Century: The Mausoleum of Khvāja Ahmad Yasavī.” Translated by Lisa Golombek. Iran 23 (1985): 109–127.
  338.  
  339. DOI: 10.2307/4299755Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  340.  
  341. English translation of an essay published by Man’kovskaia in Russian in 1962 with supplementary notes and commentary by Golombek. The essay comprises a description of the Shrine of Shaykh Ahmad Yasavi, founder of the Yasavi Sufi order, built anew in Turkestan by Timur between 1389 and 1405. The analysis is based on several years of research at the monument conducted in the 1950s. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  342.  
  343. Find this resource:
  344.  
  345. Marefat, Roya. “Beyond the Architecture of Death: The Shrine of Shah-i Zinda in Samarqand.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1991.
  346.  
  347. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  348.  
  349. Study of the tombs, the majority built for elite women of the Timurid house, that grew up around the shrine of “the living king” Qutham b. al-‘Abbas, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who died during the siege of Samarkand in 677. The history of the site is traced from the 11th through 15th centuries.
  350.  
  351. Find this resource:
  352.  
  353. Masson, M. E., et al. Mavzolei Ishratkhana: monograficheskii sbornik. Tashkent, Uzbekistan: Gos. izd-vo kudozh. lit-ry Uzbekskoi SSR, 1958.
  354.  
  355. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  356.  
  357. Monograph on the ‘Ishrat Khana, a tomb founded in the early 1460s and completed by 1464 under the patronage of Habiba Sultan Begum, daughter of Jalal al-Din Firuzshah and eldest wife of Timurid Sultan Abu Sa’id. Built to house the remains of Habiba, Sultan Begum’s eldest daughter Sultan Khavand Biki, the building became a family mausoleum.
  358.  
  359. Find this resource:
  360.  
  361. McChesney, Robert D. “Architecture and Narrative: The Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa Shrine. Part 1—Constructing the Complex and Its Meaning, 1469–1696.” Muqarnas 18 (2001): 94–119.
  362.  
  363. DOI: 10.2307/1523303Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  364.  
  365. A history of the formation and patronage of the shrine of the Naqshbandi shaykh Khvaja Abu Nasr Parsa (d. 1460 or 1461) from the mid-15th century onward. The essay examines the patronage, social context, and history of the monument in the region of Balkh, and presents a reconstruction of the shrine based on written sources. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  366.  
  367. Find this resource:
  368.  
  369. O’Kane, Bernard. “The Madrasa al-Ghiyāşīyya at Khargird.” Iran 14 (1976): 79–92.
  370.  
  371. DOI: 10.2307/4300545Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  372.  
  373. The madrasa at Khargird, near Khvaf on the road between Mashhad and Herat, was founded late in Shahrukh’s reign by the vizier Ghiyas al-Din Pir Ahmad Khvafi. O’Kane offers a detailed description of the monument and considers the patron’s motivation in choosing the site and the coherent synthesis of forms achieved in its design. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  374.  
  375. Find this resource:
  376.  
  377. Pugachenkova, G. A. “’Ishrat-Khāneh and Ak-Saray, Two Timurid Mausoleums in Samarkand.” Ars Orientalis 5 (1963): 177–189.
  378.  
  379. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  380.  
  381. Outline of the general histories for the two mausolea—‘Ishrat Khana, c. 1464 and Ak-Saray, c. 1470–1480—with detailed descriptions of their construction, plans, vaulting, and decoration. Pugachenkova also considers the site of the mausolea in proximity to earlier burial sites of medieval Samarqand and abrogates earlier theories of their periods of construction. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  382.  
  383. Find this resource:
  384.  
  385. Geometry and Ornament
  386. Persistent areas of inquiry relating to Timurid architecture have focused on the application of geometry to the design of vaulting systems and revetments, and to the analyses of proportional systems and units of measurement. Such approaches are especially rich in Russian scholarship of the era of the Uzbek Socialist Republic. Many of the findings of that scholarly tradition are reviewed, summarized, and corrected in Golombek and Wilber 1988 (cited under Architecture) and are introduced here only through selected essays in Bretanitskii and Rozenfel’d 1956 and Bulatov 1969. The monumental and wide-reaching study, Necipoglu 1995, considers these and other approaches to the design and aesthetics of Timurid architecture but significantly expands the debate in new directions. Some related issues concerning geometry and aesthetic preference are explored in O’Kane 1992 but with a different emphasis. Other media of architectural decoration not based on geometric constructions are discussed in Golombek 1993, Lentz 1993, and O’Kane 1984.
  387.  
  388. Bretanitskii, L. S., and B. A. Rozenfel’d. “Arkhitekturnaia glava traktata ‘Kliuch arifmetiki’ Giias-ad-dina Kashi.” Iskusstvo Azerbaidzhana 5 (1956): 87–130.
  389.  
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391.  
  392. Analysis of the chapter from Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi’s Miftah al-hisab (The Key to Arithmetic) as it pertains to the study of geometry in architecture.
  393.  
  394. Find this resource:
  395.  
  396. Bulatov, M. S. “Iskusnye Geometricheskie Priemy v Zodchestve Samarkanda kontsa XIV–nachala XVvv.” Iskusstvo Zodchikh Uzbekistana 4 (1969): 64–106.
  397.  
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399.  
  400. Study of the role played by geometry in the design of Timurid monuments with an emphasis on Samarqand.
  401.  
  402. Find this resource:
  403.  
  404. Golombek, Lisa. “The Paysage as Funerary Imagery in the Timurid Period.” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 241–252.
  405.  
  406. DOI: 10.2307/1523189Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407.  
  408. Investigation of the near-simultaneous appearance (in Samarqand and Damascus) of plant motifs in wall paintings and glazed ceramics to decorate buildings, and their reoccurrence in Edirne in the mid-1430s. Golombek concludes with a discussion of the western migration of artisans just before and after Timur’s death. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  409.  
  410. Find this resource:
  411.  
  412. Lentz, Thomas W. “Dynastic Imagery in Early Timurid Wall Painting.” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 253–265.
  413.  
  414. DOI: 10.2307/1523190Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415.  
  416. Engaging the little-studied evidence for the continuous practice and subject matter of wall painting in various architectural settings, Lentz discusses the written and visual evidence. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  417.  
  418. Find this resource:
  419.  
  420. Necipoglu, Gülru. The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Sketchbooks and Albums. Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995.
  421.  
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423.  
  424. Study of a late-15th-century scroll compiled by master builders of the Iranian world. Composed of geometric patterns, including ground plans, vault projections, and epigraphic and architectural ornament, the scroll is examined through various optics, principally geometry and aesthetic theory. The study is particularly rich in its theoretical and methodological implications.
  425.  
  426. Find this resource:
  427.  
  428. O’Kane, Bernard. “Timurid Stucco Decoration.” Annales Islamologiques 20 (1984): 61–84.
  429.  
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431.  
  432. To remedy the lamentable neglect of stucco decoration in contrast to the polychrome ceramic revetments applied to Timurid monuments, O’Kane marshals evidence for the medium in the 15th century dividing its applications according to five types (relief stucco, simulated vaulting, stucco applied flat, low-relief molded stucco, and grilled windows).
  433.  
  434. Find this resource:
  435.  
  436. O’Kane, Bernard. “Poetry, Geometry and the Arabesque: Notes on Timurid Aesthetics.” Annales Islamologiques 26 (1992): 63–78.
  437.  
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439.  
  440. O’Kane reviews the most important aesthetic changes in Timurid art and architecture and then considers the role geometry may have played in guiding artistic production. In a final section he discusses the terms islimi and khata’i as they are used in primary written sources for what they reveal about an incipient artistic categorization.
  441.  
  442. Find this resource:
  443.  
  444. Landscape Architecture
  445. The imbrication, blending, and interpenetration of various paradigms of the Islamic palace—based on urban and sedentary models—with the nomadic and seminomadic practices of the Turko-Mongol Timurid dynasty produced outcomes only partly anticipated by the Ilkhanid Mongol dynasty that ruled Iran from the mid-1200s through the 1330s. The creation of gardens with permanent and semipermanent, and hard and soft architectural components was a hallmark of the Timurid period. Several studies—Golombek 1995, Gronke 1992, Roxburgh 2009, O’Kane 1993, Wilber 1979, and Wilber 1962—explore these practices as well as aspects of the Timurid negotiation of past traditions and their varied use of gardens for the courtly functions of recreation, sociability, and politics. These studies draw on a variety of primary written texts, which are the chief sources in the absence of material evidence and archaeological data. A group of essays provided in Subtelny 1997, Subtelny 1995, and Subtelny 1993 discuss a key source on agriculture and the planning of gardens composed just after the Timurid period, but applicable to practices in the preceding generation.
  446.  
  447. Golombek, Lisa. “The Gardens of Timur: New Perspectives.” Muqarnas 12 (1995): 137–147.
  448.  
  449. DOI: 10.2307/1523228Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  450.  
  451. A study of five gardens (bagh) outside Samarqand described in detail by Ruy González de Clavijo and Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi. Golombek develops a gendered reading of the gardens in light of two itineraries of visitation following Timur’s return to Samarqand after prolonged absences (in 1399 and 1404). Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  452.  
  453. Find this resource:
  454.  
  455. Gronke, Monika. “The Persian Court between Palace and Tent: From Timur to ‘Abbas I.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 18–22. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  456.  
  457. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  458.  
  459. Survey of the institution of the nomadic royal camp (as residence and seat of power) and the use of tents set in gardens during the Timurid period in the context of a longer history of nomadic heritage in Iran and central Asia. Gronke views changing Timurid practices as embodying a transition from nomadic to sedentary life.
  460.  
  461. Find this resource:
  462.  
  463. O’Kane, Bernard. “From Tents to Pavilions: Royal Mobility and Persian Palace Design.” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993): 249–268.
  464.  
  465. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  466.  
  467. Considers the effects of seasonal migration and pastoral nomadism under the Timurids, focusing on Timur’s rule with less attention given to the reigns of Shahrukh and Sultan Husayn. O’Kane investigates the royal camp and tentage (the mobile architecture and paraphernalia of the court) of the Mongol period and their adaptation/intersection under the Timurids through various permanent and temporary contexts. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  468.  
  469. Find this resource:
  470.  
  471. Roxburgh, David J. “Ruy González de Clavijo’s Narrative of Courtly Life and Ceremony in Timur’s Samarqand, 1404.” In The “Book” of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, and Pilgrimage, 1250–1700. Edited by Palmira Brummett, 113–158. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
  472.  
  473. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  474.  
  475. Descriptions from Clavijo’s record of the Castilian embassy to Samarqand are discussed for what they reveal about the interplay between permanent (hard) and evanescent (soft) architecture, the fusion of architectural practices associated with sedentary urban culture on the one hand and pastoral nomadism on the other.
  476.  
  477. Find this resource:
  478.  
  479. Subtelny, Maria E. “A Medieval Persian Agricultural Manual in Context: The Irshad al-Zira’a in Late Timurid and Early Safavid Khorasan.” Studia Iranica 22.2 (1993): 167–217.
  480.  
  481. DOI: 10.2143/SI.22.2.2014338Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  482.  
  483. The political and socioeconomic context of the Irshad al-zira’a, an agricultural manual composed by Qasim b. Yusuf Abu Nasri in Herat 1515, is the chief focus.
  484.  
  485. Find this resource:
  486.  
  487. Subtelny, Maria E. “Mirak-i Sayyid Ghiyas and the Timurid Tradition of Landscape Architecture.” Studia Iranica 24.1 (1995): 19–60.
  488.  
  489. DOI: 10.2143/SI.24.1.2003982Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  490.  
  491. As a complement to the Subtelny 1993 Studia Iranica essay, this work focuses on a broad range of texts to reconstruct the career of Mirak Sayyid Ghiyas, one of the authorities cited by Qasim b. Yusuf Abu Nasri (author of the Irshad al-zira’a). Subtelny identifies the members of Mirak Sayyid Ghiyas’s family and traces their careers in Safavid Herat, Uzbek Bukhara, and Mughal Agra.
  492.  
  493. Find this resource:
  494.  
  495. Subtelny, Maria E. “Agriculture and the Timurid Chaharbagh: The Evidence from a Medieval Persian Agricultural Manual.” In Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires. Edited by Attilio Petruccioli, 110–128. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 7. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1997.
  496.  
  497. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  498.  
  499. Completed in 1515 during the rule of Safavid Shah Isma’il, the Irshad al-zira’a by Qasim b. Yusuf Abu Nasri reflects the agricultural practices of Herat and the province of Khurasan in the late Timurid period. Subtelny reviews the contents of the manual and its sources before focusing on the eighth chapter, which describes the planning and planting of a garden (chahar-bagh).
  500.  
  501. Find this resource:
  502.  
  503. Wilber, Donald N. Persian Gardens and Garden Pavilions. Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle, 1962.
  504.  
  505. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  506.  
  507. The book combines a broad range of Persian primary sources and European travelers’ accounts with manuscript paintings and the author’s measured drawings and photography from periods of fieldwork. Portions of the book treat the gardens laid out by the Timurids in the 15th century and stress their role in framing and directing later garden types.
  508.  
  509. Find this resource:
  510.  
  511. Wilber, Donald N. “The Timurid Court: Life in Gardens and Tents.” Iran 17 (1979): 127–133.
  512.  
  513. DOI: 10.2307/4299682Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  514.  
  515. In this essay, Wilber turns to the account of Ruy González de Clavijo as a source for the courtly life of the Timurids and supplements his observations with visual evidence from manuscript paintings. Two reconstruction drawings, based on Clavijo’s descriptions, accompany the text. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  516.  
  517. Find this resource:
  518.  
  519. Economic, Political, Religious, and Social Perspectives
  520. Among the most useful additions to the study of Timurid architecture are a series of publications offered by historians of the period. Their contributions significantly enhance our understanding of the economic, political, religious, and social functions of architecture, including Subtelny 1994 and Subtelny and Khalidov 1995; the processes and institutions that brought them into existence; the forms of meaning that coalesced around buildings and their communities of users, as explored in DeWeese 2000; and the complex motivations of their patrons that range between acts of sheer piety and self-interest to the basic responsibility of the ruler and his elite to develop urban and semiurban infrastructures (Akio 2003 and Subtelny 1991). This selection of references also indicates the breadth of available primary written sources and approaches to their study, embodied in Gross 1982. Two other essays—Subtelny 1988a and Subtelny 1988b—are included here because they offer crucial explanations of the factors that caused changes in the nature of architectural patronage in the second half of the 15th century.
  521.  
  522. Akio, Iwatake. “The Waqf of a Timurid Amir: The Example of Chaqmaq Shami in Yazd.” In Persian Documents: Social History of Iran and Turan in the Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Edited by Kondo Nobuaki, 87–105. New Horizons in Islamic Studies. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  523.  
  524. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  525.  
  526. Jalal al-Din Amir Chaqmaq Shami served as governor of Yazd under Shahrukh. This essay examines his pious activity as a patron of architecture in the city of Yazd through an endowment deed (waqfiya).
  527.  
  528. Find this resource:
  529.  
  530. DeWeese, Devin A. “Sacred Places and ‘Public’ Narratives: The Shrine of Ahmad Yasavī in Hagiographical Traditions of the Yasavī Sūfī Order, 16th–17th Centuries.” Muslim World 90.3–4 (2000): 353–376.
  531.  
  532. DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2000.tb03695.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  533.  
  534. Considers the paradox that the shrine of Khvaja Ahmad Yasavi founded by Timur in 1397–1399 predates developed textual traditions about the Sufi shaykh by at least one hundred years. DeWeese examines the role played by the shrine as a locus for the formation of narrative and ritual traditions associated with the Ahmad Yasavi. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  535.  
  536. Find this resource:
  537.  
  538. Gross, Jo-Ann. “Khojar Ahrar: A Study of the Perceptions of Religious Power and Prestige in the Late Timurid Period.” PhD diss., New York University, 1982.
  539.  
  540. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  541.  
  542. The study considers the means by which Khvaja ‘Ubayd Allah Ahrar (b. 1404–d. 1490), leader of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, developed his authority, legitimacy, and prestige in Timurid central Asia by working through a series of political, religious, and socioeconomic systems.
  543.  
  544. Find this resource:
  545.  
  546. Subtelny, Maria E. “Centralizing Reform and Its Opponents in the Late Timurid Period.” Iranian Studies 21.1–2 (1988a): 123–151.
  547.  
  548. DOI: 10.1080/00210868808701712Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  549.  
  550. The consequences of a shift from the highly centralized control Timur exercised over his government and empire to a shared, collective political sovereignty under his successors are examined. The chief economic factor that caused the depletion of state revenues was the distribution of soyurghals, income-generating lands with tax immunity, assigned as monetary incentives to secure loyalty. Centralist policies designed to rein in the abuse of the soyurghal are examined. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  551.  
  552. Find this resource:
  553.  
  554. Subtelny, Maria E. “Socioeconomic Bases of Cultural Patronage under the Later Timurids.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 20.4 (1988b): 479–505.
  555.  
  556. DOI: 10.1017/S0020743800053861Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  557.  
  558. Examines the apparent paradox of a surge in cultural production across the arts, literature, and architecture in the late Timurid period at a time of political fragmentation and depletion of central revenues. Subtelny considers forms of landholding and tax immunities to account for the expansion of bases of patronage. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  559.  
  560. Find this resource:
  561.  
  562. Subtelny, Maria E. “A Timurid Educational and Charitable Foundation: The Ikhlāsiyya Complex of ‘Alī Shīr Navā’ī in 15th-Century Herat and Its Endowment.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.1 (1991): 38–61.
  563.  
  564. DOI: 10.2307/603748Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  565.  
  566. Drawing on a poorly studied text composed in Chaghatay Turkish by Timurid statesman, patron and litterateur ‘Ali Shi Nava’i, Subtelny discusses the activities and staffing of the Ikhlasiyya complex. ‘Ali Shir Nava’i endowed this charitable and educational complex in Herat between 1476 and 1481. The details of the endowment contribute significantly to our understanding of the role played by such institutions in the Timurid period. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  567.  
  568. Find this resource:
  569.  
  570. Subtelny, Maria E. “The Cult of ‘Abdullah Ansari under the Timurids.” In Gott ist schön und Er liebt die Schönheit: Festschrift für Annemarie Schimmel zum 7 April 1992 dargebracht von Schülern, Freunden und Kollegen. Edited by Alma Giese and J. Christoph Bürgel, 377–406. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1994.
  571.  
  572. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  573.  
  574. Though an unlikely candidate for the focus of a shrine as a staunch opponent of anything resembling saint worship, the Gazur Gah complex developed around the burial site of Hanbali traditionist and Sufi ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari (d. 1089). The development of the shrine and Ansari’s cult were fostered by members of the Timurid dynasty.
  575.  
  576. Find this resource:
  577.  
  578. Subtelny, Maria E., and Anas B. Khalidov. “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning in Timurid Iran in the Light of the Sunni Revival under Shāh-Rukh.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.2 (1995): 210–236.
  579.  
  580. DOI: 10.2307/604666Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  581.  
  582. Based on an examination of “authorizations to transmit” (ijazas) knowledge issued by Jalal al-Din al-Qayini (d. 1434–1435), the Hanafi traditionist and teacher in Herat, the essay reconstructs the curriculum supported by Shahrukh and the ruler’s revival of Sunni orthodoxy. The essay enhances our understanding of the role played by Shahrukh’s madrasa-khanaqa complex built in Herat in 1410–1411. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  583.  
  584. Find this resource:
  585.  
  586. Arts of the Book
  587. The arts of the book, including calligraphy, illumination, painting, and binding, as well as the materials and techniques of production, have long attracted the interest of art historians and been held to mark a high point in creativity and expression throughout the history of art in the Islamic lands. Dynastic successors to the Timurids (Uzbeks, Safavids, Mughals), as well as their contemporaries (the Ottomans and Turkmen), all responded in one way or another to these achievements and in some cases actively collected books from the Timurid period. Codex-format books of diverse subject matters, languages (Arabic, Persian, Chaghatay, Uighur), literary genres and types were made for Timurid patrons in metropolitan centers, principally Tabriz, Shiraz, Yazd, Herat, and Samarqand. Comparable to architecture, the initial stages of manuscript production during the reign of Timur shows a continuity with earlier traditions and practices of bookmaking, some of them directly associated with dynastic patronage (the Ilkhanid Mongols or the later Jalayirids). Over the course of the 15th century, talented artists and calligraphers—and other practitioners of the arts of the book—moved en masse or as individuals between courts, and collectively reconstituted as communities of art makers in different centers. The majority of books were conceptualized, designed, and executed in the context of workshops (kitabkhanas) sponsored by royal patrons, though these entities also created designs for other media including portable objects and architecture. Because of the importance accorded to the arts of the book of the Timurid period, these manuscripts are always treated in introductory surveys or books dedicated to the presentation of Persianate painting and the making of manuscripts more generally, such as Titley 1984. Early scholarship, such as Stchoukine 1954, tends to privilege the classification of extant manuscripts into “schools” associated with metropolitan centers in a taxonomic approach that works first from securely dated and provenanced manuscripts (bearing colophons or other internal documentation) to generate stylistic diagnostics that could be applied to undated and unprovenanced examples to make attributions. Interest in individual artists, calligraphers, and patrons is also a common feature of early scholarship seeking to downplay foreignness and stress shared practices and values with the canon of Western European art (which, in the example of Na’imi 1949, yielded useful reference works). While both approaches to the study of the arts of the book continue today, there is increased attention to the study of manuscripts as holistic entities, where they are not studied exclusively for their paintings (Gray 1979 and Wright 2012); a broadening of interest in the types of texts, images, and codex-format objects studied by art historians, including album collections (Sugimura 1986 and Roxburgh 2005); detailed consideration of texts and images—how each acts on the other in the book; and more overt considerations of methodology in light of the historiography of the field, such as Robinson 1991.
  588.  
  589. Gray, Basil, ed. The Arts of the Book in Central Asia, 14th–16th Centuries. Paris: UNESCO, 1979.
  590.  
  591. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  592.  
  593. Although the edited volume closely hews to the taxonomic framework set up according to “schools,” defined by metropolitan centers (e.g., Herat, Shiraz, Tabriz, Bukhara) to subdivide chapters, the opening chapters devoted to binding, illumination, and calligraphy—hence taking in all aspects of the codex—were pioneering at the time of publication.
  594.  
  595. Find this resource:
  596.  
  597. Na’imi, ‘Ali Ahmad. Suratgaran va khvashnivisan-i Harat dar ‘asr-i Timurian. Kabul, Afghanistan: Matba’a-i ‘umumi, 1318, 1949.
  598.  
  599. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  600.  
  601. Study of the artists and calligraphers who were active at the Timurid court of Herat in the 15th century.
  602.  
  603. Find this resource:
  604.  
  605. Robinson, Basil W. Fifteenth-Century Persian Painting: Problems and Issues. Hagop Kevorkian Series on Near Eastern Art and Civilization. New York: New York University Press, 1991.
  606.  
  607. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  608.  
  609. In this collection of essays, Robinson returns to many materials and problems that had concerned him over his long career. Chapters treat Herat and Shiraz, the Turkmens, Transoxiana (central Asia), and India, focusing on key manuscripts, patrons and artists, and questions of transmission and stylistic dis/continuities.
  610.  
  611. Find this resource:
  612.  
  613. Roxburgh, David J. The Persian Album 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
  614.  
  615. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  616.  
  617. Examines the emergence of the codex-format album as a site for the collection and display of formerly disparate materials—calligraphies, paintings, drawings—culled from various sources and that served different original functions. The first three chapters consider Timurid-period albums and link their formation to emerging notions of an internal art history and aesthetic theories.
  618.  
  619. Find this resource:
  620.  
  621. Stchoukine, Ivan. Les peintures des manuscrits Tîmurîdes. Bibliothèque archèologique et historique 60. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1954.
  622.  
  623. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  624.  
  625. One of the earliest attempts to compile a corpus of manuscripts of the Timurid period, Stchoukine’s text introduces the primary sources and offers a descriptive catalogue of some eighty-two manuscripts with paintings that are organized according to metropolitan “schools” (e.g., Shiraz, Herat).
  626.  
  627. Find this resource:
  628.  
  629. Sugimura, Toh. The Encounter of Persia with China: Research into Cultural Contacts Based on Fifteenth Century Persian Pictorial Materials. Senri Ethnological Studies 18. Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnology, 1986.
  630.  
  631. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  632.  
  633. The study focuses on a corpus of paintings and drawings, inspired by Chinese art, which were produced at the Timurid and Turkmen courts during the 15th century. These artworks were bound into albums of the Timurid and Safavid periods now held by the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul.
  634.  
  635. Find this resource:
  636.  
  637. Titley, Norah. Persian Miniature Painting and Its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
  638.  
  639. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  640.  
  641. The Timurid art of the book, chiefly the medium of painting, is set amid a wider narrative that outlines the history of illustrated Persian texts from the 1200s through 1800s. The history is examined mostly through the holdings of the British Library, London.
  642.  
  643. Find this resource:
  644.  
  645. Wright, Elaine J. The Look of the Book: Manuscript Production in Shiraz 1303–1452. Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Papers 3. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, 2012.
  646.  
  647. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  648.  
  649. Based on the close physical analysis of the materials and techniques of bookmaking, Wright investigates aspects of artistic continuity and discontinuity against a turbulent political backdrop of dynastic change, as well as material and aesthetic innovations, especially relating calligraphy (the shift to nasta’liq script) and illumination.
  650.  
  651. Find this resource:
  652.  
  653. Monographic Studies of Texts and Manuscripts
  654. The wide range of synthetic introductions to the arts of the book under the Timurids is enriched by an equally extensive bibliography of studies on single texts (e.g., Firdawsi’s Shahnama, Nizami’s Khamsa) and other manuscripts (e.g., anthologies). These span the genres of biographical and historical writing; genealogies (a recurring interest of the Turko-Mongol Timurid dynasty); didactic works (which as a category actually spans diverse genres and subject matters); as well as works of epic, lyrical, and romantic poetry. Such focused studies—often monographic—engage questions related to text and image relationships, patterns of illustration, the artistic and programmatic choices that shaped ideological meanings in books, the nature of the patron’s and artist’s agency in the making of books, and the ongoing Timurid adaptation of internal and external and preceding and contemporary artistic sources and traditions.
  655.  
  656. Biography, History, and Genealogy
  657. The Timurid arts of the book devoted considerable attention to the genres of history, genealogy, and biography, which together served various ideological imperatives beyond a basic desire and need to record. In fostering the composition of historical writing and the drafting of genealogies, Timurid patrons, artists, and intellectuals followed specific frameworks and models cast in the era of Mongol Ilkhanid rule over Iran. Esin 1989, Ettinghausen 1955, Inal 1992, and Sertkaya 1979–1980 deal with history and genealogy and consider, among other issues, the available models from the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty, many of which were collected by ruler Shahrukh in Herat. The enduring attention devoted to the life and deeds of the dynastic founder Timur expressed through his biography-cum-history Zafarnama (Book of Victory)—composed first by Nizam al-Din Shami and reworked by Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi—is considered in Sims 1990–1991 and Sims 1973 in light of its shifting ideological value. Other biographical works sponsored by the Timurids include the episode in the Prophet Muhammad’s life, studied in Gruber 2008 and Séguy 1977, that traces his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence his ascension through the seven heavens to the throne of God and then to paradise and hell. Yet another form of biographical text, but one linked to the science of astronomy, includes the birth chart. A remarkable example fashioned for Timurid Prince Iskandar Sultan is presented in Elwell-Sutton 1984 and Keshavarz 1984.
  658.  
  659. Elwell-Sutton, Laurence P. “A Royal Timurid Nativity Book.” In Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens. Edited by Roger M. Savory and Dionisius A. Agius, 118–136. Papers in Mediaeval Studies 6. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984.
  660.  
  661. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  662.  
  663. Comprehensive presentation and analysis of the “birth chart” (kitab-i vilada) made for Iskandar Sultan, grandson of Timur, in 1411. The essay offers a useful overview of the measurement and interpretation of astronomical and astrological phenomena in medieval Islam.
  664.  
  665. Find this resource:
  666.  
  667. Esin, Emel. “Hanlar Ulaki (The Succession of Kings): On the Illustrated Genealogy, with Uygur Inscriptions, of Mongol and Temurid Dynasties, at the Topkapi Library.” In Gedanke und Wirkung: Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag von Nikolaus Poppe. Edited by Walther Heissig and Klaus Sagaster, 113–127. Wiesbaden, Germany: O. Harrassowitz, 1989.
  668.  
  669. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  670.  
  671. Study of the Turko-Mongol genealogy composed for Timur’s grandson Khalil Sultan who governed Samarqand from 1405 to 1409. The genealogy proposes a shared lineage for the House of Timur with that of Genghis Khan. In addition to translating the Uighur captions, Esin analyzes the pictorial conventions of the scroll, including postures and attributes.
  672.  
  673. Find this resource:
  674.  
  675. Ettinghausen, Richard. “An Illuminated Manuscript of Hāfiz-i Abrū in Istanbul. Part I.” Kunst des Orients 2 (1955): 30–44.
  676.  
  677. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  678.  
  679. Study of the Majma al-tawarikh (The Compendium of History), a history completed by Timurid historian Hafiz Abru in 1425. The Timurid manuscript was the physical continuation of a corpus of folios from a 14th-century copy of Ilkhanid historian Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-tawarikh (The Gatherer of Chronicles). Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  680.  
  681. Find this resource:
  682.  
  683. Gruber, Christiane. El “Libro de la Ascensíon” (Mi’rajnama) Timúrida. Valencia, Spain: Patrimonio, 2008.
  684.  
  685. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  686.  
  687. Study of the Mi’rajnama (Book of Ascension) of the Prophet Muhammad made in Herat between 1430 and 1440. Grube gives equal weight to the analysis of the Mi’rajnama text, program of illustrations, and marginal commentaries, and analyzes internal and external (Buddhist) sources for the pictorial iconography.
  688.  
  689. Find this resource:
  690.  
  691. Inal, Güner. “Miniatures in Historical Manuscripts from the Time of Shahrukh in the Topkapi Palace Museum.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 103–115. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  692.  
  693. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  694.  
  695. Based on three manuscripts in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the author examines the process of illustrating histories at the Timurid court in Herat during the reign of Shahrukh and the various relations between them to examples of Mongol Ilkhanid histories made in Tabriz in the early 1300s.
  696.  
  697. Find this resource:
  698.  
  699. Keshavarz, Fateme. “The Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (1984): 197–208.
  700.  
  701. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  702.  
  703. Analysis of the illustrated birth chart, dated 18 April 1411, made for Iskandar Sultan, son of ‘Umar Shaykh, grandson of Timur. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  704.  
  705. Find this resource:
  706.  
  707. Séguy, Marie-Rose. The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet: Miraj-Nameh. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
  708.  
  709. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  710.  
  711. As the first book-length presentation of the “Book of Ascension” (Mi’rajnama) of the Prophet Muhammad made in Herat between 1430 and 1440, Séguy’s work retains its value—after Gruber 2008—as a useful synopsis of the Prophet Muhammad’s spiritual journey from Jerusalem through the seven heavens to the throne of God and then on to paradise and hell. Includes legible full-color illustrations.
  712.  
  713. Find this resource:
  714.  
  715. Sertkaya, Osman F. “Timürlü Seceresi (Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, Hazine 2152, v. 32–43).” Sanat Tarihi Yilligi 9–10 (1979–1980): 241–258.
  716.  
  717. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. The most complete presentation of the Turko-Mongol genealogy tracing the ancestry of the House of Timur commissioned by the dynastic founder’s grandson Khalil Sultan (r. 1405–1409) in Samarqand. The genealogy, bound into an album before 1447, is fully illustrated and described.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723. Sims, Eleanor. “The Garrett Manuscript of the Zafar-Name: A Study in Fifteenth Century Timurid Patronage.” PhD diss., New York University, 1973.
  724.  
  725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  726.  
  727. Detailed study of the Garrett Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, copy of Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi’s Zafarnama (Book of Victory), the biography of Timur, completed at Herat in 1467–1468 for Sultan Husayn.
  728.  
  729. Find this resource:
  730.  
  731. Sims, Eleanor. “Ibrahim-Sultan’s Illustrated Zafar-Nameh of 839/1436.” Islamic Art 4 (1990–1991): 175–217.
  732.  
  733. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  734.  
  735. In this important study, Sims assembles the many disparate illustrated folios from Ibrahim Sultan’s 1436 copy of the Zafarnama (Book of Victory), the panegyric biography of Timur, and contextualizes the work within the prince’s wider bibliophilism.
  736.  
  737. Find this resource:
  738.  
  739. Epic, Lyrical, and Romance Poetry and Didactic Works
  740. Studies of various illustrated versions of Firdawsi’s Shahnama (Book of Kings), an epic tale tracing the lives and deeds of the kings of Iran before the advent of Islam and a staple of courtly manuscript patronage since the early 1300s, are offered by Abdullaeva and Melville 2008, Brend 2010, and Sims 1992. The political utility of Firdawsi’s text is also investigated in these studies, especially Sims 1992. Another commonly illustrated poetic work, treating themes of kingship and romance that delivers palatable didactic lessons through instructive and entertaining stories (on the ethical conduct of life applicable ultimately to everyone from the ruler to the everyday man), is the Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami. Illustrated manuscripts are considered in Robinson 1957, Soucek 1988, and Soucek 1971. Another genre of text, blending prose with poetry, is concerned with the ethics, morality, and practice of statecraft (within the wide-ranging Islamic literature related to “Mirrors for Princes,” spanning pragmatic and philosophical works). Such texts include Sa’di’s Gulistan (Rose Garden), discussed in Hillenbrand 1996, and Nizami ‘Aruzi Samarqandi’s Chahar Maqala (Four Discourses), discussed in Sims 1974–1975, copies of which were both made for Timurid Prince Baysunghur.
  741.  
  742. Abdullaeva, Firuza, and Charles Melville. The Persian Book of Kings: Ibrahim Sultan’s Shahnama. Treasures from the Bodleian Library 1. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2008.
  743.  
  744. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  745.  
  746. The monograph presents the illustrated Shahnama of Firdawsi, made for the library of Timurid prince and governor of Shiraz, Ibrahim Sultan. The manuscript is owned by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The illustrations are discussed and presented in full color although the manuscript is contextualized in relation to other Timurid-period illustrated manuscripts and the broader topic of Firdawsi’s epic poem.
  747.  
  748. Find this resource:
  749.  
  750. Brend, Barbara. Muhammad Juki’s Shahnamah of Firdausi. London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2010.
  751.  
  752. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  753.  
  754. Brend analyzes the copy of Firdawsi’s epic, comprising thirty-one paintings made in the 1440s in Herat for Timurid Prince Muhammad Juki. These pieces have been owned by the Royal Asiatic Society, London, since 1834). In its ambition, the manuscript is the last known extant example of its type from the city of Herat before the political turmoil of the 1450s through late 1460s.
  755.  
  756. Find this resource:
  757.  
  758. Hillenbrand, Robert. “The Message of Misfortune: Words and Images in Sa’di’s Gulistan.” In Silk and Stone: The Art of Asia. Edited by Jill Tilden, 32–45 and 186–187. London: Hali, 1996.
  759.  
  760. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  761.  
  762. Hillenbrand considers the interpretation of Sa’di’s Gulistan (Rose Garden) fashioned through the cycle of illustrative paintings in a copy of the manuscript made for the library of Timurid Prince Baysunghur in 1427, Herat. Sa’di’s text is composed of a number of stories and aphorisms intended to be entertaining, morally beneficial, and of practical value.
  763.  
  764. Find this resource:
  765.  
  766. Robinson, B. W. “Prince Baysunghor’s Nizami: A Speculation.” Ars Orientalis 2 (1957): 383–391.
  767.  
  768. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  769.  
  770. Working from the assumption that the absence of an illustrated copy of Nizami’s Khamsa (Quintet) from Baysunghur’s library is “inconceivable,” Robinson attempts to identify the fragments of such a manuscript scattered throughout various collections.
  771.  
  772. Find this resource:
  773.  
  774. Sims, Eleanor. “Prince Baysunghur’s Chahar Maqala.” Sanat Tarihi Yilligi 6 (1974–1975): 375–409.
  775.  
  776. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  777.  
  778. As the only known extant illustrated copy of Nizami ‘Aruzi Samarqandi’s Chahar Maqala (Four Discourses)—on the secretary, poet, astrologer, and doctor, the four personages essential to the medieval ruler/prince—Sims relates the text to a wider literature spanning genres of mirrors for princes, belles lettres, and prose of instruction, and addresses the causes of the stylistic heterogeneity of the manuscript paintings.
  779.  
  780. Find this resource:
  781.  
  782. Sims, Eleanor. “The Illustrated Manuscripts of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma Commissioned by Princes of the Houses of Tīmūr.” Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 43–68.
  783.  
  784. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  785.  
  786. Three manuscripts of Firdawsi’s Shahnama (Book of Kings) were made for Baysunghur, Ibrahim Sultan, and Muhammad Juki, c. 1430–1444. After observing the rare incidence of overlap across their programs of narrative illustration, Sims makes the case for the inflection of each book according to external factors, mostly based on the predilections and tastes of each prince. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  787.  
  788. Find this resource:
  789.  
  790. Soucek, Priscilla P. “Illustrated Manuscripts of Nizami’s Khamsa, 1386–1482.” PhD diss., New York University, 1971.
  791.  
  792. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  793.  
  794. Soucek examines the history and practice of illustrating Nizami’s Khamsa (Quintet), a work composed of five long narrative poems (masnavis), viz Makhzan al-asrar (Treasury of Secrets); Khusraw va Shirin (Khusraw and Shirin); Layli va Majnun (Layli and Majnun); Haft Paykar (Seven Portraits); and Iskandar-nama (Book of Alexander). The first book is a collection of moral discourses, the others, romances.
  795.  
  796. Find this resource:
  797.  
  798. Soucek, Priscilla P. “The New York Public Library Makhzan al-asrār and its Importance.” Ars Orientalis 18 (1988): 1–37.
  799.  
  800. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  801.  
  802. The essay simultaneously presents the Makhzan al-asrar (Treasury of Secrets) of Nizami, dated 1478 and made for Aqqoyunlu ruler Ya’qub Beg (r. 1478–1490), and connects aspects of its materials (including gold-sprinkled, block-printed, colored Chinese papers), calligraphy, and painting to wider issues related to the making of luxury books in 15th-century Iran and central Asia. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  803.  
  804. Find this resource:
  805.  
  806. Critical and Thematic Studies
  807. There is also a rich scholarship on the Timurid arts of the book driven by explicitly theoretical questions, problems, and/or themes. These include, but are not limited to, focused treatments of the bibliophilism of individual Timurid patrons, such as Soucek 1992 on Iskandar Sultan, and Akimushkin 1994 and Lentz 1985 on Baysunghur; models of artistic transmission and shifting aesthetic preferences, Milstein 1977 and Sims 1974; and the various registers of possible meaning constructed by Timurid-period viewers, after Baxandall’s notion of the “period eye,” developed through explorations of the construction of pictorial space, Hillenbrand 1992; repetition and imitation of models, Adamova 1992; or the extra-textual cultural, literary, and religious references embedded in manuscript paintings, Kia 2006. Other studies focused on images outside the context of the book include Grube 1968.
  808.  
  809. Adamova, Ada. “Repetition of Composition in Manuscripts: The Khamsa of Nizami in Leningrad.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 67–75. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  810.  
  811. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  812.  
  813. Working from the observation of repeated pictorial compositions in manuscripts fashioned for elite Timurid patrons, Adamova offers an account of their function that exceeds any functional necessity, and argues instead for a theory of imitation (as original creation) based on a model of poetic practice.
  814.  
  815. Find this resource:
  816.  
  817. Akimushkin, O. F. “Baisungur-mirza i ego rol’ v kul’turnoi i politicheskoi zhizni Khorasanskogo sultanata Timuridov pervoi treti XV veka.” Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie 5 (1994): 143–168.
  818.  
  819. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  820.  
  821. Baysunghur, son of Shahrukh, grandson of Timur, was renowned in Persian sources as a patron of arts and literature and an accomplished poet and calligrapher. Akimushkin reviews the various sources to construct a picture of Baysunghur’s cultural role as patron and practitioner of the arts and also considers his political roles.
  822.  
  823. Find this resource:
  824.  
  825. Grube, Ernst J. “Studien zur Malerei der Timuriden, I. Zur Frühstufe von Herāt. I.” Kunst des Orients 5.1 (1968): 1–23.
  826.  
  827. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  828.  
  829. The essay presents several paintings on silk from the Timurid period and sequences of works on paper closely related to them. Chinese paintings are discussed as a source of subject matters. Grube offers an opinion on the complex stylistic affiliations evidenced by the corpus of works of which the majority is bound in albums at the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul (albums with shelfmarks H. 2153 and H. 2160). Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  830.  
  831. Find this resource:
  832.  
  833. Hillenbrand, Robert. “The Uses of Space in Timurid Painting.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 76–102. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  834.  
  835. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  836.  
  837. Hillenbrand examines the creation of space and spatial values in examples of Timurid manuscript painting through the representation of architecture, the use of color, the margin, and empty space, developing the observations of earlier scholars who have written on the same subject.
  838.  
  839. Find this resource:
  840.  
  841. Kia, Chad. “Is the Bearded Man Drowning? Picturing the Figurative in a Late-Fifteenth-Century Painting from Herat.” Muqarnas 23 (2006): 85–105.
  842.  
  843. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  844.  
  845. With the ambition of expanding debate about relationships between text and image in Persian painting generally, Kia studies illustrations to the 1483 copy of Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s Mantiq al-tayr (The Dialogue of the Birds), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Identifying those pictorial elements that find no mention in the text, Kia explains them in light of Naqshbandi Sufi practice and as metaphorical tropes. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  846.  
  847. Find this resource:
  848.  
  849. Lentz, Thomas W. “Painting at Herat under Baysunghur ibn Shah Rukh.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1985.
  850.  
  851. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  852.  
  853. Groundbreaking study of the patronage of Timurid Prince Baysunghur (d. 1433), son of Shahrukh. The dissertation assesses the rich body of textual evidence: the corpus of manuscripts, albums, independent calligraphies, paintings, and drawings, and connects them to their political and cultural context. The final chapter investigates the aesthetic priorities, and potential meaning, of artworks stemming from Baysunghur’s patronage.
  854.  
  855. Find this resource:
  856.  
  857. Milstein, Rachel. “Sufi Elements in the Late Fifteenth Century Painting of Timurid Herat.” In Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet. Edited by M. Rosen-Ayalon, 357–370. Jerusalem: Institute of Asian and African Studies, 1977.
  858.  
  859. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  860.  
  861. Milstein identifies shifts in the choice of texts selected for illustration and the pictorial modalities of painting—a tendency toward naturalism—and connects these developments to the growing impact of Sufism, or mystical Islam, at the late Timurid court in Herat during the rule of Sultan Husayn.
  862.  
  863. Find this resource:
  864.  
  865. Sims, Eleanor. “The Timurid Imperial Style: Its Origins and Diffusion.” Art and Archaeology Research Papers 6 (1974): 56–67.
  866.  
  867. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  868.  
  869. After reviewing the state of inquiry about painting in Timurid manuscripts, Sims turns to the “Three Masnavis” of Khwaju Kirmani, 1396, Baghdad (probably for Sultan Ahmad Jalayir), regarded as a fulcrum in the history of the luxury book because it manifests the aesthetic priorities found in later Timurid examples. Against this model of the history of the royal manuscript, she introduces a body of heterogeneous artworks.
  870.  
  871. Find this resource:
  872.  
  873. Soucek, Priscilla P. “The Manuscripts of Iskandar Sultan: Structure and Content.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 116–131. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  874.  
  875. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  876.  
  877. Two anthologies, or miscellanies, of prose and poetry on various topics made for the library of Iskandar Sultan, Timurid governor of Shiraz, between 1409 and 1410 are described and dissected. Valuable appendices reveal the complex structuring of the anthologies that used two spaces—the “text” (matn) and “margin” (hashiyya)—for text and illustration.
  878.  
  879. Find this resource:
  880.  
  881. The Artist
  882. Studies on individual artists are dominated by the personality of Kamal al-Din Bihzad (d. 1535–1536) who was active in Herat during the rule of Sultan Husayn (r. 1468–1506) and who ended his career at the Safavid court in Tabriz under Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576). Such studies range from attempts to connect Bihzad’s career to a group of late Herati manuscripts, such as Bahari 1996 and Barry 2004, or single manuscripts, chiefly the Zafarnama (Book of Victory) by Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi dated 1467–1468, as in Arnold 1930. An important study of the latter manuscript was published in Sims 1973 (cited under Monographic Studies of Texts and Manuscripts). Lentz 1990 examines the mythologization of Bihzad propagated by Safavid and Mughal writers as well as the new stylistic traits associated with him and his period, whereas Melikian-Chirvani 1988 broadens the inquiry to consider other artists associated with these developments. Essays critical of the methodological assumptions of stylistic analysis predicated on the artist’s hand imported from European art history or retroactively applied from Mughal painting of the late 1500s and after, and notions of artistic authorship generally, are rare but include Roxburgh 2000. Primary sources of the Timurid period frequently mention artists by name and the incidence of signatures grows over the course of the 15th century in both manuscripts and single-sheet works of painting and drawing. Investigations of the artist in the early period of Timurid rule are less common but include Robinson 1990 and Rogers 1990.
  883.  
  884. Arnold, Thomas W. Bihzad and His Paintings in the Zafar-namah Manuscript. London: B. Quaritch, 1930.
  885.  
  886. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  887.  
  888. Focusing on the manuscript of Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi’s Zafarnama (Book of Victory), the biography of Timur, copied in 1467–1468 at Herat for Sultan Husayn, Arnold examines the cycle of paintings attributed to Bihzad by later Mughal owners as a firm basis upon which to consider the artist’s style and innovations.
  889.  
  890. Find this resource:
  891.  
  892. Bahari, Ebadollah. Bihzad: Master of Persian Painting. London: I. B. Tauris, 1996.
  893.  
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895.  
  896. Bahari assembles a broad corpus of illustrated manuscripts and single-page artworks produced in Herat during the reign of Sultan Husayn. Although many of these examples cannot be securely attributed to the hand of the artist Bihzad, the artworks are organized according to the arc of his career.
  897.  
  898. Find this resource:
  899.  
  900. Barry, Michael A. Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzâd of Herât (1465–1535). Paris: Flammarion, 2004.
  901.  
  902. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  903.  
  904. The text of this richly illustrated book essentially addresses two questions, the first, the history of the image in Islamic lands since the 8th century, and second, the achievements of painting, predominantly for manuscripts, in Herat during the rule of Sultan Husayn.
  905.  
  906. Find this resource:
  907.  
  908. Lentz, Thomas W. “Changing Worlds: Bihzad and the New Painting.” In Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting. Edited by Sheila R. Canby, 39–54. Bombay: Marg, 1990.
  909.  
  910. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  911.  
  912. Beginning from the perspective of the “Bihzadian” legacy, the semimythological formation of the artist’s achievement in later Safavid and Mughal contexts of reception and collection, Lentz reviews aspects of the new pictorial style associated with the artist and discusses their effects and implications.
  913.  
  914. Find this resource:
  915.  
  916. Melikian-Chirvani, Assadullah Souren. “Khwaje Mirak Naqqash.” Journal Asiatique 276.1–2 (1988): 97–146.
  917.  
  918. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  919.  
  920. The first systematic assessment of artist Khvaja Mirak Naqqash, adoptive father of the more famous Bihzad, active in the late 15th century in Herat under Sultan Husayn (r. 1469–1506). Melikian-Chirvani reconstructs the artist’s biography from written sources and identifies a set of his stylistic features from one signed manuscript painting.
  921.  
  922. Find this resource:
  923.  
  924. Robinson, B. W. “‘Zenith of His Time’: The Painter Pir Ahmad Baghshimali.” In Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting. Edited by Sheila R. Canby, 1–20. Bombay: Marg, 1990.
  925.  
  926. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  927.  
  928. An attempt to link the artist Pir Ahmad Baghshimali, who is mentioned in written sources, to extant illustrated manuscripts from the Jalayirid and Timurid courts in Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, and Herat between 1397 and 1416.
  929.  
  930. Find this resource:
  931.  
  932. Rogers, J. Michael. “Siyah Qalam.” In Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting. Edited by Sheila R. Canby, 21–38. Bombay: Marg, 1990.
  933.  
  934. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  935.  
  936. Although the Timurid-period artist and calligrapher Muhammad b. Mahmudshah al-Khayyam—who signed several works bound into various album collections—is not the primary subject of this essay, Rogers discusses several works by him and sketches the period of his production.
  937.  
  938. Find this resource:
  939.  
  940. Roxburgh, David J. “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting.” Muqarnas 17 (2000): 119–146.
  941.  
  942. DOI: 10.2307/1523294Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  943.  
  944. Study of the vexing issues related to authorship in manuscript painting of the late Timurid period. Centered on the meaning of the signature and attribution in Timurid book culture, and the formal features of paintings, the essay contrasts the methods and notions of authorship modeled in Western European painting against those formed by the Timurids and Safavids. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  945.  
  946. Find this resource:
  947.  
  948. Calligraphy
  949. The art of calligraphy is addressed in many of the sources cited in this article (including Lentz and Lowry 1989, cited under General Overviews, and Gray 1979, Roxburgh 2005, and Wright 2012, all cited under Arts of the Book). While Timurid-period calligraphers continued to refine the canonical six cursive scripts stemming from the practice of Yaqut al-Musta’simi (d. 1298), active under the Ilkhanid Mongols, and the generation of his students and followers active throughout the 1300s, they also developed the cursive script named nasta’liq that emerged in the late 1300s (the history of the script is covered in Wright 2012). These scripts were employed for copying specific texts but also appeared in various media in architecture and on portable objects. Histories of calligraphy in the six cursive scripts and nasta’liq, as well as calligraphers and their artworks are presented in James 1992 and Bayani 1984–1985.
  950.  
  951. Bayani, Mahdi. Ahval va athar-i khvashnivisan. 2 vols. Tehran, Iran: ‘Ilmi, 1363 (1984–1985).
  952.  
  953. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  954.  
  955. Biographical listing of calligraphers, many of them active during the Timurid period, divided according to the type of script in which each master excelled. Entries comprise biographies for each calligrapher and lists of works—including manuscripts and single-page specimens—studied by Bayani (unfortunately, museum and collection cataloguing information is incomplete).
  956.  
  957. Find this resource:
  958.  
  959. James, David. After Timur. Qur’ans of the 15th and 16th Centuries. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art 3. London: Nour Foundation, 1992.
  960.  
  961. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  962.  
  963. Staged through the impressive collection of Qur’ans assembled by Khalili, the volume offers a comprehensive introduction to key developments in the production of Qur’ans under the Timurids and the innovations of several calligraphers.
  964.  
  965. Find this resource:
  966.  
  967. Drawing
  968. Rich corpuses of preparatory and finished drawings survive from the Timurid period. Often preserved alongside the remnants of earlier artistic production, the vast majority are bound into albums in libraries and museums in Berlin and Istanbul. Two publications present these collected materials: The Berlin materials are published in Ipsiroglu 1964, some of the Istanbul materials (from Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, album H. 2152) are published in Roxburgh 2005 (cited under Arts of the Book). Roxburgh 2002 considers the practice of drawing and their functions, and Gray 1969 and Gray 1972 the Chinese iconographic sources adopted by artists of the Timurid period.
  969.  
  970. Gray, Basil. “Some Chinoiserie Drawings and Their Origin.” In Forschungen zur Kunst Asiens in Memoriam Kurt Erdmann. Edited by Oktay Aslanapa and Rudolf Naumann, 159–171. Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi, 1969.
  971.  
  972. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  973.  
  974. As an early study of a group of drawings employing Chinese subject matters, and the problem of “Chinoiserie,” Gray focuses on the visual affinities of Timurid drawings and Chinese blue and white porcelains.
  975.  
  976. Find this resource:
  977.  
  978. Gray, Basil. “A Timurid Copy of a Chinese Buddhist Picture.” In Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Edited by Richard Ettinghausen, 35–38. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972.
  979.  
  980. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  981.  
  982. Discusses a small group of drawings modeled after Chinese Buddhist subjects in light of their adoption of iconographic types and translation of vigorous Chinese brushwork into line drawing. Gray focuses on one example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
  983.  
  984. Find this resource:
  985.  
  986. Ipsiroglu, M. S. Saray-Alben: Diezsche Klebebände aus den Berliner Sammlungen—Beshreibung und stilkritische Anmerkungen. Wiesbaden, Germany: F. Steiner, 1964.
  987.  
  988. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  989.  
  990. Catalogue and critical study of the paintings and drawings mounted into the albums assembled for Prussian chargé d’affaires Heinrich Friedrich von Diez in the late 1700s. A large number of the drawings can be dated by stylistic analysis to the Timurid period, particularly those from c. 1400 to 1450.
  991.  
  992. Find this resource:
  993.  
  994. Roxburgh, David J. “Persian Drawing, ca. 1400–1450: Materials and Creative Procedures.” Muqarnas 19 (2002): 44–77.
  995.  
  996. DOI: 10.2307/1523315Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  997.  
  998. An introduction to the various modalities of drawing, their techniques and subject matters based on the extensive corpus of materials bound into the Topkapi Palace album H.2152 in Istanbul and the Diez albums in Berlin. Broader implications of dexterity in drawing and its practice are discussed.
  999.  
  1000. Find this resource:
  1001.  
  1002. Techniques and Contexts of Production
  1003. The contexts of design and their various relations to the production of art (including architecture) have been stimulated as much by extant objects as a small number of textual sources. Chief among the latter is the ‘arzadasht, a report documenting works in progress in the “workshop” (kitabkhana) of Herat generally dated to c. 1430. Sources for this short document are referenced in the section Primary Sources, specifically Özergin 1976, Thackston 1989, and Thackston 2001. The workings of the kitabkhana are also the subject of a separate chapter in Lentz and Lowry 1989 (cited under General Overviews). Evidence and issues related to systems of artistic design and production are discussed, often speculatively, in Golombek 1992, but have not been without their critics, principally Rogers 1996. A second document treated in depth in Richard 2001 gives credence to the role performed by kitabkhanas under the Timurids. Production outside the parameters of court-sponsored patronage is less well studied, but Mukminova 1992 indicates the possibilities of such inquiry.
  1004.  
  1005. Golombek, Lisa. “Discourses of an Imaginary Arts Council in Fifteenth-Century Iran.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria Subtelny, 1–17. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  1006.  
  1007. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1008.  
  1009. Golombek engages the apparent shift in relative importance between architecture and manuscript painting over the Timurid period from the rule of Timur to Sultan Husayn by looking at the agency of the patron and imagining the role played by formal and informal discussions at the Timurid courts about art and architecture.
  1010.  
  1011. Find this resource:
  1012.  
  1013. Mukminova, R. G. “Craftsmen and Guild Life in Samarqand.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 29–35. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  1014.  
  1015. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1016.  
  1017. A rare inquiry into the production of objects and goods not intended for an elite audience, Mukimonva’s essay reviews primary sources to glean information about crafts and workshops, the kinds of goods that were made and consumed in the city and the region, and the distribution of specialized markets throughout the city fabric. Other topics are covered in the essay.
  1018.  
  1019. Find this resource:
  1020.  
  1021. Richard, Francis. “Nasr al-Soltani, Nasir al-Din Mozahheb et la Bibliothèque d’Ebrahim Soltan à Shiraz.” Studia Iranica 30.1 (2001): 87–104.
  1022.  
  1023. DOI: 10.2143/SI.30.1.295Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1024.  
  1025. Analysis of an important document, written by Qivam al-Din Muhammad Yazdi, that invites Nasir al-Din Muhammad Muzahhib to Shiraz to head the workshop (kitabkhana) sponsored by Ibrahim Sultan. The essay, the most direct statement about the dynamics of the workshop and its personnel, includes a French translation of the entire letter.
  1026.  
  1027. Find this resource:
  1028.  
  1029. Rogers, J. Michael. “Centralisation and Timurid Creativity.” In Special Issue: La civiltà Timuride come fenomeno internazionale. 2 vols. Edited by Michele Bernardini. Oriente Moderno 15.2 (1996): 533–550.
  1030.  
  1031. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1032.  
  1033. Rogers criticizes the notion of centralized production in the Timurid kitabkhanas of different cities and offers opinions on what he considers to be especially notable aspects of creativity in art of the 15th century. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1034.  
  1035. Find this resource:
  1036.  
  1037. Other Media
  1038. Objects in other media, some of them portable, fashioned during the Timurid period survive in lesser numbers than the arts of the book and architecture. There is, however, an important body of scholarship on these materials that considers objects from a variety of perspectives, including the methods of their production, forms and decoration, epigraphic content, stylistic and aesthetic values, and materiality. General contexts for such objects comprise the personal effects of the elite, the paraphernalia of the court, and the furnishings and furniture made as pious endowments and gifts to religious and social institutions.
  1039.  
  1040. Ceramics, Metalwork, Stone, and Wood
  1041. The selection of sources here can be divided into case studies of individual objects, as in Ivanov 1981, Pinder-Wilson and Watson 1960, and Sakisian 1925, and analyses of a single medium stemming from a catalogue of objects, as in Golombek, et al. 1996, Komaroff 1992a, and Melikian-Chirvani 1982. Despite its brevity, Deniké 1935 is included here to represent the understudied material of wood. The Komaroff essay (1992b) on inscriptions is included because it expands on the role of poetic inscriptions presented in her monographic study of the same year. Grube 1974 compiles a useful list of known portable objects, some of which were unpublished before this volume.
  1042.  
  1043. Deniké, Boris. “Quelques monuments de bois sculpté au Turkestān occidental.” Ars Islamica 2.1 (1935): 69–83.
  1044.  
  1045. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1046.  
  1047. The essay gathers and discusses a small corpus of carved wooden components, including columns, windows, and doors from architectural complexes in central Asia datable to between the 10th and 19th centuries. Several examples are from sites in Timurid Samarqand and Turkestan. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1048.  
  1049. Find this resource:
  1050.  
  1051. Golombek, Lisa, Robert B. Mason, and Gauvin A. Bailey. Tamerlane’s Tableware: A New Approach to the Chinoiserie Ceramics of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Iran. Islamic Art and Architecture Series 6. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1996.
  1052.  
  1053. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1054.  
  1055. The authors set about classifying the large corpus of Timurid blue and white stone-paste ceramics, many consisting only of fragments, in the near-complete absence of archaeological data and with only six dated examples as reference. Chapters explain the new ceramic as a response to Chinese models, present the results of petrographic analysis of ceramic fabric, and introduce stylistic typologies of motifs related to Chinese prototypes.
  1056.  
  1057. Find this resource:
  1058.  
  1059. Grube, Ernst. “Notes on the Decorative Arts of the Timurid Period, I.” In Gururajamanjarika. Studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci. Vol. 1. Edited by A. Forte, et al., 233–279. Naples, Italy: Istituto universitario orientale, 1974.
  1060.  
  1061. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1062.  
  1063. Faced with a general lack of scholarship on the decorative arts, Grube compiles a list of objects (pottery, metalwork, precious metals and jades, rugs and textiles, bookbinding and woodwork), and describes their general features and trends in production. Includes illustrations.
  1064.  
  1065. Find this resource:
  1066.  
  1067. Ivanov, Anatoli A. “O bronzovykh izdeliiakh kontsa XIV v iz mavzoleia Khodzha Ahmeda Iasevi.” In Sredniaia Aziia i ee sosedi v drevnosti i srednevekov’e. Edited by B. A. Litvinskii, 68–84. Moscow: Nauka, 1981.
  1068.  
  1069. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1070.  
  1071. Focused study of the oil lamps endowed by Timur to the shrine of Khvaja Ahmad Yasavi.
  1072.  
  1073. Find this resource:
  1074.  
  1075. Komaroff, Linda. The Golden Disk of Heaven: Metalwork of Timurid Iran. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1992a.
  1076.  
  1077. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1078.  
  1079. A systematic publication of the forms, materials, techniques, decoration, and inscriptions of Timurid metalwork made within the court’s milieu. Developments in Timurid metalwork are discussed in relation to earlier traditions and for how they shaped later practices under the Safavid dynasty. The detailed catalog entries and appendices complement the work.
  1080.  
  1081. Find this resource:
  1082.  
  1083. Komaroff, Linda. “Persian Verses of Gold and Silver: The Inscriptions on Timurid Metalwork.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 144–157. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992b.
  1084.  
  1085. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1086.  
  1087. Komaroff studies Persian verses inlaid in Timurid metalwork not only for its proper content but also as a form of evidence that can flesh out the interplay between patronage, taste, and cultural context—factors that together shaped the luxury commodity in metal.
  1088.  
  1089. Find this resource:
  1090.  
  1091. Melikian-Chirvani, Assadullah Souren. Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8th–18th Century. London: HMSO, 1982.
  1092.  
  1093. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1094.  
  1095. More than a descriptive catalogue of bronze, brass, and copper wares from Iran in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Melikian-Chirvani’s book narrates a history of Iranian metalwork. Though the Timurid objects are few, reflecting the collection’s different strengths, it is useful to see them in light of metalwork traditions in western and southern Iran from the 1200s to 1300s.
  1096.  
  1097. Find this resource:
  1098.  
  1099. Pinder-Wilson, R., and William Watson. “An Inscribed Jade Cup from Samarqand.” British Museum Quarterly 23.1 (1960): 19–22.
  1100.  
  1101. DOI: 10.2307/4422656Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1102.  
  1103. Study of a jade cup inscribed in the name of Ulugh Beg, son of Shahrukh, in relation to comparable objects from various collections. The essay discusses the talismanic and prophylactic properties of jade and its likely places of manufacture in the absence of direct evidence for requisite skill in the lapidary arts in Timurid lands. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1104.  
  1105. Find this resource:
  1106.  
  1107. Sakisian, A. “A propos d’une coupe a vin en agate au nom du sultan timouride Hussein Baicara.” Syria 6.3 (1925): 274–279.
  1108.  
  1109. DOI: 10.3406/syria.1925.3111Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1110.  
  1111. This striped agate cup made for Sultan Husayn in 1470–1471 is remarkable and one of few surviving hard-stone vessels from the late 15th century—in contrast to several examples from c. 1420–1450. The essay reviews the patron’s biography and includes a translation of the complex inscription in Persian poetry carved into the cup.
  1112.  
  1113. Find this resource:
  1114.  
  1115. Textiles
  1116. The virtual absence of surviving Timurid textiles, whether made for personal use, gift, or as furnishings, is all the more lamentable because they played such a central role in courtly life and ceremony as signifiers of status and authority. In Briggs 1946 and Briggs 1940, visual evidence is used as a source to reconstruct aspects of carpet design. The increased publication of primary written sources, largely in Persian, in critical editions and translation since the 1940s offers renewed possibilities for the study of textiles despite the large gap in extant textile materials.
  1117.  
  1118. Briggs, Amy. “Timurid Carpets: I. Geometric Carpets.” Ars Islamica 7.1 (1940): 20–54.
  1119.  
  1120. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1121.  
  1122. With no examples of Timurid carpets to study directly, Briggs builds an argument about their form and designs through the evidence furnished by manuscript paintings. Noting that representations of portable objects, such as ceramics, in paintings correlate to extant examples, Briggs is confident in her approach. The essay focuses on a formal analysis of designs. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1123.  
  1124. Find this resource:
  1125.  
  1126. Briggs, Amy. “Timurid Carpets.” Ars Islamica 11–12 (1946): 146–158.
  1127.  
  1128. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1129.  
  1130. Continuing the method developed in her essay published in Ars Islamica 1940 to study carpets with geometric designs, here Briggs discusses arabesque and flower carpets. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1131.  
  1132. Find this resource:
  1133.  
  1134. Intermedia Relations and Aspects of Design
  1135. The essays included here directly address issues related to the design and aesthetic features of objects. Some focus on the relation between Timurid-period objects and earlier artistic traditions within the Islamic lands, as in Grube 1996 and Grube 1989, whereas Crowe 1992 examines the impact of Chinese objects, especially carved lacquers, on Timurid art. The pieces in Komaroff 1994 and Lowry 1986 explore the phenomenon of formal and thematic affinity across media, specifically between works on paper and metalwork, and can be viewed as complementary evidence to scholarly studies on the Timurid workshop (kitabkhana), or alternatively to the notion of a shared aesthetic across forms explicable through a Timurid Zeitgeist proposed by some scholars.
  1136.  
  1137. Crowe, Yolande. “Some Timurid Designs and Their Far Eastern Connections.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Lisa Golombek and Maria E. Subtelny, 168–178. Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture 6. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992.
  1138.  
  1139. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1140.  
  1141. Review of relations between the Timurid and Ming dynasties from Timur’s reign until that of Shahrukh followed by a series of examples of artworks in various media demonstrating the Timurid artists’ responses to Chinese sources ranging from the adoption of motifs to the adaptation of the formal effects of one medium into another.
  1142.  
  1143. Find this resource:
  1144.  
  1145. Grube, Ernst. “Notes on the Decorative Arts of the Timurid Period, II.” Islamic Art 3 (1989): 175–208.
  1146.  
  1147. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1148.  
  1149. Composed of three parts, Grube examines a group of Timurid candlesticks, assessing their relation to Syrian and Iranian prototypes; the carved wooden box made for Ulugh Beg, for which the author argues the importance of designs stemming from the Shiraz workshop of the 1370s–1410s; and examples of Timurid ceramics bearing dragon patterns.
  1150.  
  1151. Find this resource:
  1152.  
  1153. Grube, Ernst. “Notes on the Decorative Arts of the Timurid Period, III. On a Type of Timurid Pottery Design: The Flying-Bird Pattern.” In Special Issue: La civiltà Timuride come fenomeno internazionale. Vol. 2. Edited by Michele Bernardini, 601–609. Oriente Moderno 15 (1996).
  1154.  
  1155. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1156.  
  1157. The principal argument Grube intends to make in the essay is that Timurid ceramics were part of a continuous artistic culture connected to the preceding period of Mongol Ilkhanid rule. Though differences in technique may exist between regions of production, the shared motif of the flying bird is evidence for continuity.
  1158.  
  1159. Find this resource:
  1160.  
  1161. Komaroff, Linda. “Paintings in Silver and Gold: The Decoration of Persian Metalwork and Its Relationship to Manuscript Illustration.” Studies in the Decorative Arts 2.1 (1994): 2–34.
  1162.  
  1163. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1164.  
  1165. Investigates the various registers of connection between metalwork, chiefly from post-Mongol period, and manuscript painting and illumination and the ultimate demise of figural inlaid metalwork in the Timurid period. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1166.  
  1167. Find this resource:
  1168.  
  1169. Lowry, Glenn D. “Iskandar Mirza and Early Timurid Metalwork.” Orientations 17.8 (1986): 12–21.
  1170.  
  1171. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1172.  
  1173. Noting the dearth of studies on portable objects, compared to the literature on the art of the book, Lowry considers metalwork associated with Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan who governed from Shiraz. He identifies the formation of a new formal idiom traceable to the illumination of books and suggests that the aesthetic unity attributed to the later artistic production of Herat be located earlier in Shiraz.
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement
Public Pastes
Advertisement
We use cookies for various purposes including analytics. By continuing to use Pastebin, you agree to our use of cookies as described in the Cookies Policy.  OK, I Understand
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!