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ROYAL ATELIER, TABRIZ, IRAN, CIRCA 1530 Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the prince reading, resting on a blossom tree, erroneous attribution to Vali Jan in the lower left hand corner, surrounded by light blue borders with panels of Persian poetry, within gold rules, verso with Persian poetry in various arrangements in naskh and nastaliq Painting 6 7/8 x 3 5/8 in. (17.5 x 9.2 cm.); folio 8 5/8 x 5 ?in. (22 x 13.5 cm.)
Manuscript illustration reached a new peak under the royal patronage of the second ruler of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76). Tahmasp had been trained in painting from an early age, and was an active patron of the arts of the book. Our young prince bears close resemblance to single figure paintings produced in Tabriz in the 1530s by some of the most highly celebrated court painters active in the royal atelier of Shah Tahmasp.
The style of this portrait is most closely related to the work of the artist Aqa Mirak, who is believed to have been the director of Tahmasp’s atelier during the later years of the production of the great ‘Shah Tahmasp Shahnama’. His illustrations are characterised by his crisp, clear style, with a vibrant palette and large figures. Mirak was contemporaneous with both Mirza ‘Ali and Sultan Muhammad who also worked on that Shahnama, but of all the court artists he was known to have been the closest to the Shah. His status amongst his fellow artists and his patron gave him the honour of painting the first illustration in the Shah Tahmasp Shahnama, the scene of Firdawsi and the Court Poets of Ghazna.
Another royal manuscript which includes four of Mirak’s works is a copy of the Khamseh of Nizami of 1539-43 now in the British Library( Or. 2265, folios 57v, 60v, 66v and 166v). These paintings include figures which are extremely like our prince in the design and colour palette used to illustrate the courtiers’ outfits, the turban ornaments, and their delicate, thoughtful and personalised facial features. Another similar feature is the reoccurrence of the blossoming trees in the background which are very similar to that found on our painting.
S.C. Welch gives a detailed and insightful account of Mirak in the first volume of the great two-volume publication with Martin Bernard Dickson, published in 1981 (pp.95-117). In that we learn of numerous contemporaneous accounts which praise Mirak’s abilities as a painter. One of the highest praises is given by Dust Muhammad, another artist of the royal atelier:
“At the House of Painting he but picks up his brush and depicts for us pictures of unparalleled delight. As for likenesses - and where are their like? – as the farseeing view them, they are foremost in sight. God grant him his pictures and paintings! Good Lord! The glory of this painter! What God-given might!"
(Dickson and Welch, Vol.I, p.95)
Amongst the single figure works attributed to Mirak the one most closely related to our painting is that of ‘Two Safavid Princes’ (fig.1) studied and published by Soudavar in his Art of the Persian Courts (Soudavar 1992, p.182, pl.69). Soudavar describes the shape of the Taj-i Haydari turbans and the details of the faces, including ‘almost imperceptible double chins’, as features that distinguish Mirak’s works. A further discussed characteristic of his paintings is the ‘twisted silhouette of the figures with the feet drawn laterally although the hips and upper body are directly facing the view.’ All of these features are clearly seen in our young prince. Mirak was highly celebrated for his ability to capture his audience in mid-motion and create life-like portraits of facial features which are beautiful portrayed in our painting. The bold and solid colours immaculately chosen and applied in Aqa Mirak’s paintings are another giveaway feature of his unsigned works, making it no surprise that he was in charge of the materials needed for the royal ateliers (Welch, 1980, p.84).
Aqa Mirak’s miniatures are mostly two dimensional in their representation of space as he usually avoided architecture and preferred sinuous or curving lines to straight ones. The depiction of our youth against an elegant peach blossom tree was a typical feature of Tabriz paintings, textiles, tiles and carpets of this period and are found on the background of many surviving examples including the illustrations in the Shah Tahmasp Shahnama and paintings in the above mentioned Khamsa of Nizami. A close comparable of a youth resting against a blossom tree is in an album formerly kept in the Shrine of Ardabil but now in the Leningrad which Dickson and Welch attribute to Mirak’s more mature phase (Dickenson and Welch, Vol. I, p.115, fig.161). Another painting of very similar composition depicting a prince and his page, also painted in a large format against an elegant yet simple background with a small blossom tree, is in the opening of an album ordered by Shah Tahmaps for his brother Bahram Mirza, which was compiled by Dust Muhammad in 1544-45 (Topkapi Saray Musuem inv. no. H.2154 fol. 1388b, see Milan, 2004, p.8, fig. 1.2). Aqa Mirak's career continued despite the decline of Shah Tahmasp's interest in painting due to extremist religious views in the 1550s, and he subsequently painted for Prince Ibrahim Mirza.
An additional painting which also shares many similar features to our prince is titled Young Man Holding Flowers (stem from a blossom tree) in the collection of Museum of Fine Arts Boston (inv. no. 14.590, see Welch, 1980, pp. 186-87, fig. 71). This work, which was attributed to Muzaffar ‘Ali (fl. c. 1540-1576) by S.C. Welch, further supports the dating of our painting and it’s attribution to the royal atelier of Tabriz. Muzaffar ‘Ali was Aqa Mirak’s contemporary and also active at the royal atelier at the same time. The similarity between their work demonstrates the shared use of design and templates between the masters.
The examples studied and discussed here strongly suggest that our painting is a product of the Tabriz royal atelier and closely linked to the surviving works of Aqa Mirak, making it likely that its creation is either directly linked to the hands of the master himself, or a very close follower.
The small inscription on the bottom left corner of our painting which attributes it to the Tabrizi artist Vali Jan who was a student of the Safavid master Siyavush Beg and was active in the court of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III (r.1574-1595) (Stchoukine, 1966, pp.34-35). This however is likely to be later added and erroneous. Although no signed works are known by him, those attributed are of very different and Ottomanized styles and stylistically later than our painting.
