[CT]introduction

396 Ibid., p. 67.

397 Although the figure of the child has been effaced, under magnification it appears that he wore a gold crown. Depicting Tahmâsb as a child rather than a baby probably alleviated the difficulty of attiring a tiny figure in a crown and kingly robes.

398 The only reference to the identity of Tahmâsb's mother seems to be in the `Âlamârâ-ye Shâh Esmâ`il, p. 80. The stories in this volume are fairy tales of questionable accuracy, but Shâh Tahmâsb's mother is there named Tâjlu, daughter of `Âbedin (`Abdi Beyg) and sister of Dormish Khân-e Shâmlu and Hosayn Khân-e Shâmlu.

399 This episode has been meticulously pieced together by Dickson; see "Shah Tahmasb and the Uzbeks," pp. 265-95. The main instigator was Hosayn Khân-e Shâmlu, acting governor and guardian to Sâm Mirzâ.

400 The face of the figure representing Shâh Esmâ`il was slightly damaged from natural flaking and bore no signs of purposeful disfiguration, although it also represented Tahmâsb. The face of the lady sitting on the far right of the balcony also flaked naturally. Of the two figures in the doorway, that of the prince, presumably Bahrâm Mirzâ, who had remained loyal to Tahmâsb, was also badly effaced (now restored), while that of the woman, possibly his sister Soltânom (see cat. no. 65), was untouched.

401 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 154-64.

402 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, fol. 385v. On another page from the Shâh Tahmâsb Shâhnâmé, Ferdowsi's Parable of the Ship of Shi`ism, Mirzâ `Ali used a different formula: "May the portals of this threshold forever open upon opportunity!"; see idem, vol. 2, fol. 18v.

403 His mastery of the script is also seen in two signed calligraphic works in an album prepared for Amir Ghayb Beyg, now in the Topkapi Sarây Library, Istanbul (H.2161); see Bayâni, vol. 3, p. 912.

404 The left column is about .5 centimeters shorter than the standard column size, a discrepancy that a calligrapher would normally avoid. Also, the verses written at the top were probably originally copied at the bottom of the page following the ghazal that was eliminated as a result of the insertion of this painting.

405 For a reproduction, see B. W. Robinson, Persian Drawings from the 14th through the 19th Century (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), pl. 33, also Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 90.

406 The text of Qâzi Ahmad's treatise as given by the Persian scholar Soheyli includes a sentence naming Mir Mosavver as Mansur (Qâzi Ahmad-e Qomi, Golestân-e honar (Garden of talents), ed. A. Soheyli [Tehrân: Bonyâd-e Farhang-e Iran, 1352], p. 139), although this sentence is not included in the translation used by Minorsky (V. Minorsky, trans., Calligraphers and Painters: A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, Son of Mir Munshi [Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery Publications, 1959], p. 185). Qâzi Ahmad copied this section entirely from Budâq-e Qazvini's Javâherol-akhbâr, which also lacks the sentence; the Persian writing of "Mansur" is very close to that of "Mosavver," and the inclusion of Mansur may be attributed to scribal errors and additions. A more reliable document is an inscription on a booklet held by a young nobleman in a drawing in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (S86.0291; see G. D. Lowry with S. Nemazee, A Jeweler's Eye [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988], p. 192), which reads: "The slave of his majesty the king, Sayyed `Ali . . . Sayyed Mohammad." Stylistically this work has been considered the work of Mir Mosavver's son, Mir Sayyed `Ali, and the inscription a signature by the artist. But the missing word under the man's thumb must be read as "son of," and Mohammad would be the name of the artist's father, for whom mosavver (the painter) is only a functional epithet. As the son is a sayyed (male descendant of the Prophet), the father is a sayyed too, but he is usually referred to with the epithet mir, equivalent in meaning to sayyed. Even without assuming the words "son of" under the nobleman's finger, the writing can be read as "Mir Sayyed `Ali-ye Sayyed Mohammad," the Persian "-ye" in this context also meaning "son of."

407 This Guy-o chogân was copied by Shâh Tahmâsb himself. For a reproduction of Mir Mosavver's painting, see Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 89.

408 Khândamir (Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 326) gives `Abdollâh-e Morvârid's death date as 1516 although the modern scholar Bayâni argues for the year 1525; see Bayâni, vol. 2, p. 352.

409 Ghiyâsoddin b. Homâm Khândamir, Dasturol-vozarâ (Chronicle of the viziers), ed. S. Nafis (Tehrân: Eqbâl Press, 1317), p. 395.

410 This Arabic spelling of the word kharâbat is quite unusual (instead of the more familiar kharâbé in Persian). It was the prerogative of a learned scribe like Bayâni to use unconventional formulas in an otherwise reiterative field.

411 Bayâni, vol. 1, pp. 273-74.

412 See Rumlu, Ahsanottavârikh, p. 222, in which the only historical reference to Mir Ashraf is found under the year 1539, where he is mentioned as the keeper of the Ardabil Shrine who had engaged in the pursuit of the rebellious governor of Âstârâ; see also, p. 379.

413 The crown prince Tahmâsb was already displaying his talents at the age of eleven, when he copied a manuscript of Guy-o chogân intended as a gift to his guardian, Qâzi Jahân. This manuscript, dated A.H. 931/1524-25, presently in the State Public Library, St. Petersburg (Dorn 441), has illustrations added by different painters; see S. C. Welch, A King's Book of Kings (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972), pp. 51-52, and M. M. Ashrafi, Persian-Tajik Poetry in XIV-XVIII Centuries Miniatures (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1974), nos. 32-37. The double-page frontispiece (reproduced in Ashrafi, nos. 32-33) displays distinct signs of immaturity and is probably the work of Tahmâsb himself, perhaps assisted by his tutor Behzâd.

414 Budâq-e Qazvini dedicated his chronicle entitled Javâherol-akhbâr (Jewel of the chronicles) to Shâh Esmâ`il II in 1576, some three or four months before the shâh's assassination in the month of Ramazân. The section on painters and calligraphers seems to have been written earlier since he there referred to Shâh Tahmâsb and his sister, Princess Soltânom (d. 1562), as living persons and with much respect. Later on, he lamented the ill treatment he received from Shâh Tahmâsb and praised the favors bestowed on him by Esmâ`il II. As a witness to the Safavid court in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, Budâq relates much information that later chroniclers such as Qâzi Ahmad omitted.

A unique manuscript, the Javâherol-akhbâr is in the collection of the State Public Library, St. Petersburg (Dorn 288). I am indebted to Prof. J. Woods and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago for the use of a photocopy of the manuscript.

415 Ibid., p. 112a.

416 For a complete discussion, see Welch, King's Book of Kings, pp. 33-65.

417 Topkapi Sarây Library, Istanbul (H.2154), prepared circa 1544. The account on Soltân-Mohammad is contained on a page of the preface written in nasta`liq in white ink on pink paper.

418 Bayâni, vol. 1, p. 201.

419 Court of Gayumars is now in the Sadruddin Aga Khan collection; see S. C. Welch, Royal Persian Manuscripts (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 37.

420 Budâq was perhaps alluding to some of the bold techniques adopted by Soltân-Mohammad, such as depicting the Qezelbâsh headgear in relief (see cat. no. 59).

421 Budâq-e Monshi-ye Qazvini, Javâherol-akhbâr, p. 112a. Budâq also stated: "He [Soltân-Mohammad] died in Tabriz and had an equally talented son who left for India after his father's death and prospered there." This last assertion is problematic: Soltân-Mohammad's son, the artist Mirzâ `Ali, is not otherwise known to have traveled to India, although conceivably he could have gone prior to joining Ebrâhim Mirzâ's atelier in Khorâsân about 1556.

422 Only two illustrations in the royal Khamsé of the British Library, London (Or. ms. 2265, fols. 53v, 202v), and a few others in the Bahrâm Mirzâ Album (H.2154) in the Topkapi Sarây Library, Istanbul, bear reliable attributions to Soltân-Mohammad. For a comprehensive study of Soltân-Mohammad's stylistic evolution, see Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 51-86.

423 Dating of the poem is suggested by Hâfez's announcement of `Id-e Fetr as occurring in early springtime. During Hâfez's active period, `Id-e Fetr coincided with early spring in or before 1376. This phenomenon is repeated every thirty-three years. The poem can hardly apply to the previous coincidence of the two festivities in 1343, when Shaykh Abu-Es-hâq was struggling to become independent in Shirâz.

424 Trans. W. Thackston.

425 The term "`Erâq" here refers to Persian `Erâq (as opposed to present-day Iraq), a territory that comprised the provinces of central Iran including Rey, Qazvin, Hamedân, Kâshân, and Esfahân. In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chronicles, the term `Erâq without the epithet `Ajam (Persian), usually referred to Esfahân; see, for instance, Mahmud-e Kotobi, Târikh-e âl-e Mozaffar (History of the Mozaffarids), ed. A. Navâ'i (Tehrân: Amir-e Kabir Press, 1364), p. 103, and Khândamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 3, p. 591. "Soltân" in the painter's name is not a title but an honorific associated with the Prophet Mohammad. In popular Islam, heroic adventures of the past and tales of kings gradually mingled with legends. Stories eventually emerged in which the Prophet Mohammad, his cousin and son-in-law `Ali, and members of his family were portrayed as heroes of kingly stature. Thus in popular Islam, especially within certain Sufi orders of the late fifteenth century, the epithet Soltân was added to the names of these "heroes" to reflect their acquired kingly stature, and the names Soltân-Mohammad and Soltân-`Ali became common. These names are also frequently encountered among painters and calligraphers of this period because of ties between artist guilds and Sufi orders.

426 For the production of both paper and calligraphy, Herât seems to have been superior to Tabriz at this time. No renowned calligrapher succeeded the "western" calligraphy dynasty of the Khârazmis in Tabriz (see cat. no. 48), while in Herât, calligraphers of the caliber of Soltân-Mohammad-e Nur, Mir `Ali, and Mohammad-Qâsem-e Shâdishâh had established Herât as the center for the development of nasta`liq.

427 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, pp. 38-39.

428 The epithet employed for Sâm Mirzâ was abol-nasr (triumphant); see Khândamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 586.

429 See Dickson, "Shah Tahmasb and the Uzbeks," pp. 265-95.

430 See A. Welch, Shah `Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan (New York: Asia House Gallery, 1973), pl. 97a; B. Lewis, ed., The World of Islam (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 254.

431 See L. Honarfar, Ganjiné-ye asâr-e târikhi-ye Esfahân (Esfahân treasures) (Esfahân: Saghafi Bookshop, 1344), p. 87.

432 Published in Ashrafi, Persian-Tajik Poetry, p. 43; see also Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 53a.

433 See also Welch, King's Book of Kings, p. 98.

434 Ibid.

435See B. W. Robinson, Persian Paintings from the India Office Library (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1976), p. 119, or Stchoukine, Peintures des manuscrits safavis, pl. 80. For another example of the same composition produced in Shirâz, see N. M. Titley, Persian Miniature Painting (London: British Library, 1983), p. 101.

436 See Welch, Royal Persian Manuscripts, pls. 11-14.

437 For Tahmâsb's delegation, see Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 270. See also Eskandar Beyg, vol. 1, p. 558.

438 Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 270.

439 Ibid.

440 Budâq, Javâherol-akhbâr, p. 331. Curiously, within a few pages, Budâq repeats the same comment with slight variations: the first time the Ottoman envoy is named as Mohammad Chelebi and the duration of the Shâhnâmé project given as thirty years; at the second mention, the envoy is referred to as Mohammad Beyg Châvosh-bâshi (delegation chief) and the duration as twenty years.

441 S. C. Welch, Wonders of the Age, exh. cat. (Cambridge: Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum, 1979), p. 45; Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, fol. 10r.

442 Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 73, 92, 111.

443 Very few paintings by Behzâd can be attributed to the Safavid period, among them, A Winter Scene, fig. 12, attributed to Behzâd, and fol. 484 from a Zafarnâmé in the Golestân Library, Tehrân (no. 708); see B. Gray, Peinture persane (Geneva: Skira, 1961), p. 133. This might be explained by old age and addiction to alcohol, alluded to by Budâq-e Qazvini: "He constantly drank and could not survive without wine or companion. This was the secret of his longevity as he had reached the age of seventy. Despite the ban on alcohol, he continued to drink and the Shâh knew it"; see Budâq, Javâherol-akhbâr, p. 112b.

444 Zâbolestân referred to a province in southeast Iran, nearly the same as present-day Sistân.

445 In the Shâhnâmé the land of Turân is to the northeast across the Oxus River and stands for the territory from which raiders of the steppes (mostly of Turkish stock) regularly invaded Iran.

446 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, no. 82. Attributions to Mir Mosavver by Welch are based on two signed works, fol. 60v of the Shâh Tahmâsb Shâhnâmé and a single portrait in the British Museum, London (1930-11-12-02). Dickson and Welch discuss at length the body of works attributable to Mir Mosavver; see vol. 1, p. 87. However, a reference there to "Mir Mosavver's signature on Noshiravân in the Haunts of Owls" (fol. 15v) in the British Museum Khamsé is not correct. Stylistically Welch has attributed the painting to Âqâ Mirak, and the inscription should be read as "Mirak-e mosavver" (see p. 000 under "Âqâ Mirak").

447 M. Omid-Salar, "On Babr-e Bayân," Iran Nameh 1, no. 3 (1983), pp. 447-58; see also J. Khaleghi Motlagh, "Babr-e Bayân: Varieties of Invulnerability," Iran Nameh 6, no. 2 (1988), pp. 200-27.

448 Rostam, scion of the kings of Sistân and Zâbolestân, was possibly of Scythian origin; Sistân originally meant "home of the Scythians." Among the Scythians, warriors were traditionally connected to the goddess of waters; ibid.

449 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, no. 86. My own arguments, although leading to a different conclusion, are based on Dickson and Welch's seminal investigations.

450 See Welch, King's Book of Kings, p. 148, and Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, fols. 120, 123, 153.

451 See Welch, Wonders of the Age, nos. 54, 59; Welch, Royal Persian Manuscripts, pls. 24, 26.

452 See Sotheby's, May 22, 1986, lot 388.

453 See, for instance, all monumental inscriptions in Noshiravân Receives an Embassy in Welch, King's Book of Kings, p. 180. A false signature likely would have included the term Mirzâ, which is contained in every third-party reference to him.

454 The painting was catalogued by Sotheby's as sixteenth century in a sale of the Kevorkian collection, December 6, 1967, lot 46, although an English scholar, citing certain "odd" features of the work, argued that it was a fake, most probably a nineteenth-century creation. The painting was reoffered in 1981, catalogued as "Persia, c. 1890."

455 Welch, Wonders of the Age, p. 209.

456 Welch, King's Book of Kings, p. 280.

457 For a chronological study of Mirzâ `Ali's works, see Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 129-53.

458 Bayrâm Beyg, a descendant of the Bahârlu clan of the Qara Qoyunlu, was a Shi`a, as were most of his clansmen; see N. H. Ansâri, "Bayrâm Khân," Encyclopaedia Iranica (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975-), vol. 4, p. 4.

459 Riazul-Islam, Indo-Persian Relations (Tehrân: Iranian Culture Foundation, 1970), p. 29.

460 Ibid., p. 35. Riazul-Islam cites several plausible causes for Tahmâsb's disaffection for Homâyun: collusion between two of Kamrân Mirzâ's servants against Homâyun; Tahmâsb's knowledge of Homâyun's claim to be superior to the shâh after the conquest of Gujarat; and Tahmâsb's memory of the battle of Ghojdavân, where Bâbor, Homâyun's father, had deserted the Persian army. But he proposes that the main reason was Homâyun's resistance to converting to the Shi`a faith, which Tahmâsb would have found enormously valuable to Safavid propaganda efforts.

461 Rumlu, Ahsanottavârikh, p. 236.

462 Riazul-Islam, Indo-Persian Relations, p. 37.

463 The intervention remained a well-known fact at the Safavid court, at least up to Shâh `Abbâs's I time. In a letter to `Abbâs, one of his amirs deplored the lack of counselors such as Bahrâm Mirzâ and Soltânom who, he said, had intervened with Tahmâsb not to send Homâyun back to his brother Mirzâ Kâmrân; see A. H. Navâ'i, ed., Shâh `Abbâs: A Collection of Historical Documents (Tehrân: Zarin Press, 1367), vol. 2, p. 21.

464 Rumlu, Ahsanottavârikh, p. 699.

465 Ibid., pp. 367, 689.

466 Topkapi Sarây Library, Istanbul, H.2154, fol. 7v. Trans. W. Thackston.

467 Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 178.

468 Welch, Wonders of the Age, p. 27. In a passage of the Javâherol-akhbâr, Budâq-e Qazvini stated that Mirzâ `Ali "left for India after his father's death and prospered there" (p. 112). If Budâq's statement is accurate, Mirzâ `Ali must have left for the Mughal court after 1550 since an illustration in a manuscript of Jâmi, dated [AH date?]/1549-50 and produced in Tabriz[??], is attributable to him (Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., fol. 66a; for a reproduction see Lowry, Jeweler's Eye, pl. 34).

469 Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 150-53.

470 Qâzi, Golestân, pp. 110-11.

471 For an illustration see ibid., pp. 216-17.

472 I. Stchoukine, "Qasim Ibn `Ali et ses peintures dans les Ahsan al-Kibar," Arts Asiatiques 28 (1973), pp. 45-62.

473 See "Târikh-e Rashidi (Rashidi chronicles)," ed. M. Shafi, Oriental College Magazine 10, no. 3 (1934), p. 167.

474 Stchoukine, "Qasim Ibn `Ali," fig. 1.

475 Ibid., p. 52.

476 Although the identification of the painter Qâsem son of `Ali is tentative in Dickson and Welch (vol. 1, p. 211) and Welch, Wonders of the Age (no. 35), it is fully asserted by S. C. Welch in Treasures of Islam, ed. T. Falk (London: Sotheby's Publications, 1985), nos. 49, 51.

477 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 2, pls. 21, 125.

478 Poems of Alisher Navoi (Tashkent: Fan Publishing, 1970), pls. 3, 7, 21.

479 Khândamir recounts that Qâsem-e `Ali remained in Sistân, joining the services of Soltân Mahmud during the governorship (1515-20) of Amir Khân-e Musellu in Herât; see Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 358.

480 See Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, pp. 96-117.

481 For an illustration, see Welch, Royal Persian Manuscripts, pl. 20.

482 Due to the missing characters after the letters "Mi" and the appearance of the word mosavver, the signature has been thought to be that of the painter Mir Mosavver, while, on stylistic considerations, the painting has been attributed to Âqâ Mirak. The spacing between the "i" and the "m" of the next word requires at least two letters (plus the regular space between two words), favoring the reading "Mirak" over "Mir." In Persian the short vowel "a" is not written, and "Mirak" has only two letters more than "Mi."

483 Dickson and Welch, vol. 1, p. 36.

484 Ibid., pp. 264-65.

485 The Golestân manuscript might originally have been copied for the Teymurid Soltân Abu-Sa`id with illustrations by the painter Mansur; see cat. no. 29.

486 A number of the original margins of the British Library Khamsé (Or. ms. 2265) have already been attributed by S. C. Welch to Âqâ Mirak; see Welch, Wonders of the Age, pl. 52.