Brend - Perspectives on Persian painting: illustrations to Amīr Khusraus Khamsah

PERSPECTIVES ON PERSIAN PAINTING

Illustrations to Amr Khusraus Khamsah

Though we may admire them for their beauty or their spirit, the riches of manuscript illustrations are partially hidden until we know the story that gave rise to them. Similarly, the import of the complete manuscript is lost to us until we can divine the intentions of the patron.

This book is a detailed study of illustrations to Amr Khusraus Khamsah, the Quintet, in which a didactic work is followed by four romances. Amr Khusrau (12531325) lived the greater part of his adventurous life in Delhi, and composed in Hindi as well as in Persian. From the point of view of manuscript illustration, the Khamsah is his most important work. Khusraus position as a link between the cultures of Persia and India means that the early illustrated copies of the Khamsah are of particular interest. The first surviving exemplar is from the Persian area in the late fourteenth century, but a case can be made that the work was illustrated earlier in India.

Barbara Brend is an independent scholar whose principal research is into the forms and meanings of illustrations in manuscripts of the major works of Persian literature. The majority of her academic articles focus on interpretation in this area. She is the author of Islamic Art and The Emperor Akbars Khamsa of Nim.

First published in 2003

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2003 Barbara Brend

Typeset in Goudy hy LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 10:0-7007-1467-7

ISBN 13:978-0-7007-1467-4

ISBN 978-1-1368-5418-7 (ePub)

Cover illustration: The prince and his friends carry off the lady. Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Printed and bound by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne

To those who have watched over this in the guise of

ktib-sirr, Adam, Arslan, Bilqis, Sulayman, and Moshkeen.

Na s r-i dilkashtar az m-i man

Nam-i ftar az b-i zull

Bulbul-i dastn-sar-i b-qarn

-i shakar-maql u b-mi s l

His prose more pleasant than a limpid stream,

Purer his verses than the water clear,

In courts of story, matchless nightingale,

A parakeet with sugared speech, sans peer.

(From the memorial to Amr Khusrau set up

in the dargh of Shaykh Nim al-Dn Auliv

in the time of Bbur by Mad Khvjah)

LIST OF PLATES IN
COLOUR

Between pp. 36 and 37

Photographs A, B, C, H, I, K, L, M, N, O: Topkapi PAlce Museum

LIST OF PLATES IN
BLACK AND WHITE

Chapter 2 (pp. 6572)

Chapter 3 (pp. 93100)

Chapter 4 (pp. 131148)

Chapter 5 (pp. 161166)

Chapter 6 (pp. 205224)

Chapter 7 (pp. 247258)

Photographs 7, 8, 13, 14, 3439, 41, 5056, 5967: Topkapi PAlce Museum.

Firstly I should like to thank Norah Titley, formerly of the British Library, for proposing this topic to me some quarter century ago and for continuing over the years to encourage me toward publication. My thanks are also due to Robert Hillenbrand, who examined the work in the fonn of a thesis, and who has continually given encouragement. I am grateful to the many other friends, some engaged in comparable projects, who have given their encouragement, information and technical advice.

In the course of composition I have been very grateful to Amirzadeh Majd for comparing my summaries with the published Persian text. In the Persian field I also thank Turhan Gandjei, my other examiner, for some corrections; and Simon Digby, A. H. Morton, and Manijeh Bayani Wolpert for help with particular points. For assistance with Russian material. I am much indebted to Elinor Wiltshire, and also to John Youngman. Anthony Bryer gave guidance on Byzantine matters, and he and Raymond Coleman on matters nautical; Josephine Bayliss on a question of colour. Some timely help was given by Basil Robinson and Ellen Smart, With regard to the progress towards publication, I thank Ernst Grube for standing referee for an early version; from a later moment lowe a debt of gratitude to Leonard Lewisohn for a lengthy debate on restructuring; and more latterly, Jonathan Price of RoutledgeCurzon has discussed the production and furnished some elegant forms of expression.

I am profoundly grateful to the owners or custodians of manuscripts and pictures who have variously responded to my written enquiries, granted me access to their material and even supererogatory hospitality, and facilitated the acquisition of photographs. Since the process has been so long, some individuals whom I wish to thank are no longer in the position from which they helped me, and some indeed are no longer with us. In addition, some institutions have changed their name. With the hope, therefore, that the retrospective nature of some of this acknowledgement will not create confusion with regard to the present situation, I record my thanks to: M. Khairullayev of the Abu Raihon Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies, Tashkent, and the late and sadly missed Elena Polyakova; Diddi Malek of Bonhams, and Claire Penhallurick of Bonhams & Brooks; J. P. Losty and Muhammad Isa Waley of the British Library; J. M. Rogers, formerly of the British Museum, and Sheila Canby; Francis Richard of the Bibliotheque nationale de France; Elaine Wright and of the Chester Beatty Library, and a predecessor who, whatever his failings, advanced scholarship; the late Karl Brisch of the Dahlem Museum; Kjeld von Folsach of the David Collection; B. Pabst and K. Schubarth of the then Deutsche Staatsbibliotek; Sam Fogg with Crofton Black and Nabil Saidi; Milo C. Beach of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; A. Anisi of the Golestan Palace Museum; M. Adilov of the Institute of Manuscripts at Baku; Richard Virr of McGill University Libraries; Daniel Walker of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Marthe Bernus Taylor formerly of the Muse du Louvre; Volkmar Enderlin and Regina Hickman of the Museum fiir Islamische Kunst; Zahra Jafar Mohammadi and Zohreh Rouhfar of the National Museum of Iran; the late A. Arshizada and W. H. Siddiqi of the Rampur Raza Library; Michael Pollock of the Royal Asiatic Society; the Secretariat of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan; the late G. Kostygova of the former Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library, and Olga Vasilieva of the succeeding Russian National Library; Hartmut-Ortwin Feistel of Staatsbibliotek zu Berlin, and the late and missed Dieter George; Marcus Fraser formerly of Sothebys; Filiz agman, Director of the Topkapi Sarayi Mzesi, but formerly of its library, which is the principal source of material, and her former colleague Zeren Taninidi; Edmund de Unger; Betty Tyers of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Roger Wieck and Lillian Randall of the then Walters Art Gallery, now the Walters Art Museum. Permission has been duly requested to reproduce all photographs, and I am particularly grateful to those who have generously waived or moderated reproduction fees. Any omissions brought to the publishers attention will be remedied in future editions.