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R.A.S. MS 178: an unrecorded Persian painter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

B. W. Robinson
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Extract

The student of Persian painting normally approaches manuscripts of Qazwīnī's “Marvels of Creation” (‘Ajā’ib al-Makhlūqāt) with a certain wary apprehension. Copies of the work generally contain a very large number of miniatures, and thus tend to suffer, like some manuscripts of the Shāhnāma, from “painter's fatigue”—in other words the standard of painting deteriorates as the manuscript proceeds, as if the artist, who may have started off with a fine flourish, found himself, after the first hundred or so miniatures, physically wilting and mentally inert. This is, of course, only human, considering that he was required to produce small and stereotyped illustrations of an interminable series of angels, constellations, beasts, birds, insects, trees, and plants. But it means that copies of the “Marvels of Creation” of first-rate quality are exceedingly rare. The present manuscript, though not in the top flight, may be assigned a very respectable place in the second rank, and has in addition one or two other characteristics that make it a more interesting subject of study than the majority of Qazwīnī manuscripts.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 102 , Issue 2: Studies in Honour of Sir Mortimer Wheeler , April 1970 , pp. 203 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1970

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References

1 The finest known to me is the Shiraz copy of 952/1545 from the pen of Murshid al-‘Aṭṭār in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (Cat. No. 212). It contains no less than 530 miniatures, but a high standard is maintained throughout. There is also a fine copy of 1041/1631 in the John Rylands Library, Manchester (Pers. MS 3).

2 See Robinson, B. W., Persian miniature painting from collections in the British Isles, HMSO, 1967 (hereafter referred to as VAM 1967), p. 96, No. 128Google Scholar; Persian paintings (V. & A. M. Picture Book,) HMSO, 1965 (hereafter referred to as VAM 1965), pl. 7. 8.

3 Viz: 868/1464 Firdawsī, Topkapi Sarayi, Istanbul, h. 1496 (Cat. 336); 878/1473 Kātibī, Uzbekistan S.S.R Academy of Sciences, Tashkent, MS 2226 (Cat. 1123); 884/1479 Qazwīnī, Topkapi Sarayi, Istanbul, h. 410 (Cat. 192)—this copy would seem to resemble the R.A.S. manuscript very closely (25·4 × 15·5 cm., 429 folios, 103 miniatures), but unfortunately it was not among the manuscripts I examined in Istanbul two years ago; 885/1480 Firdawsī, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Cat. 157.

4 This Murshid should be carefully distinguished from Murshid al-‘Aṭṭār (“the Druggist”—cf. note 1) who copied 25 recorded manuscripts between 1521 and 1552. Mun‘im al-Dīn, incidentally, had a son who was also a scribe named Na‘īm al-Dīn, working in the 1530's and 1540's.

5 See my “ Turkman court painting: a preliminary survey ”, shortly to be published in a Memorial Volume to the late Arthur Upham Pope; also “ Origin and date of three famous Shāhnāmeh illustrations” in Ars Orientalis, I (1954), 105–12.

6 References will be found in VAM 1967, 95.

7 Huart, Cl., Les calligraphes et les miniaturistes de l’orient musulman, Paris, 1908, 257, 258Google Scholar; Jackson, and Yohannan, , A catalogue of the Persian manuscripts presented … by Alexander Smith Cochran, New York, 1914, No. 17.Google Scholar

7a Reproduced in Persian art: an illustrated souvenir of the exhibition …, London, 1931, p. 35.Google Scholar

8 See Robinson, B. W., Descriptive catalogue of the Persian paintings in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1958, 32–47Google Scholar. There is another Qazwīnī illustrated in the same style in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, MS N.F. 155 (Flügel, Cat., II, 506, No. 1438), copied by Pīr Ḥusayn al-kātib in 897/1492.

9 JRAS, III (1836), p. xii, gives a summary list of these.

10 Nos. 1203, 1301, 2669, and 2714 in Ethé's catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the India Office Library were formerly in Galley's collection.

11 IOR: Personal Records, O/6, Vol. 17. I here gratefully acknowledge the help I have received from Miss S. R. Johnson of the India Office Records in unearthing the details of Edward Galley's career.

12 IOR: Bombay Ecclesiastical Returns, N/3/4, f. 190.