SOME EXAMPLES OF IL-KHANID ART

Author(s): Mehdi Bahrami and Phyllis Ackerman

Source: Bulletin of the American Institute for Iranian Art and Archaeology , JUNE,
1938, Vol. 5, No. 3 (JUNE, 1938), pp. 257-260

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FOR IRANIAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 257

SOME EXAMPLES OF IL-KHANID ART

By Mehdi Bahrami *

The final establishment of the brought

Mongolon a crisis in the metallic cur-
Il-Khans at Maragha in 1256 (654 H.)
rency and the introduction into Iran in
marks the beginning of a period 1294 (693 H.) of the Chinese type of
in which
paper money,
Iran certainly absorbed the maximum of had gone to Byzantium in
foreign influences. To be sure,the
Chinese
first year of his rule.
contributions had long since been Although
filter- such conditions must have
influenced
ing into the country, but far more im- the arts of the time, there is
scarcely
portant was the relentless war waged by any evidence of this save in rela-
the new conquerors against the native
tively late work, which marks the end of
elements. First at Maragha andthisthen at and the beginning of the tri-
period
Tabriz, Islam was stunned by theumph of a more truly Iranian style at
rever-
berations of the Nestorian church bells Tabriz. Ghazan Khan had already given
and by the revenge of Judaism. The ef-
forts of Hulagu and his immediate suc-
cessors were especially effective in this
respect; the Papacy only just failed to
get their support.1 Doghuz Khatun, "born
in Christianity," and also the Byzantine
princess, daughter of the Emperor Mi-
chael Paleologue, gave generous patron-
age to their co-religionists, while the
prosperity of the country attracted to Fig.
the I
HALF STAR TILE, LUSTRE-PAINTED FAIENCE, FROM
court a number of Armenian, Georgian,
THE MAUSOLEUM OF PIR-I-BAKRAN. DATED 1299

Genoese, Venetian and French mer- (698 H.)

chants.2 Ahmad, brother of Abaqa and

the order to replace the churches a
his successor on the throne, on embracingtemples with mosques, and the court w
Islam tried to eliminate the Christians fostering the ancient indigenous tradi
tions. Anxious to have a mausoleum
from his court, but his emirs' preferences
defeated his purpose, and he had tobuilt give for himself as majestic as possible,
way to Arghun who again announced hethe
took his model from the Mausoleum
Khan's adherence to the Christian world. of Sultan Sanjar at Marv.4 The first ex-
This ruler even merited the special atten-
periment, to be sure, resulted in a very
tion of the Pope, Nicholas IV, and a let-unstable structure, for it was scarcely fin-
ter from Arghun giving earnest of his ished, and indeed the workers were still
alliance with Latin Christianity against busy on it when the dome collapsed
the Egyptian empire was presented to
Philip the Fair by the Genoese, Buscarei
lièrement des rois de France avec les empereurs
de Gisulf.3 Gaykhatu, whose extravagance
mongols, Histoire et Mémoires de l'Institut
Royal de France (Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres), VII (1824), p. 362; see also I. J.
* Translated by Phyllis Ackerman. Schmidt, Philologisch-kritische Zugabe zu den
1. P. Pelliot, Les Mongols et la Papauté, La von Herrn Abel-Rémusat bekannt gemachten ....
Revue de V Orient chrétien , XXIII (1922-23), pp.zwei mongolischen Original-Briefen der Könige
6-30. von Persien Argun und Öldshäitu an Philipp
2. W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant den Schönen, St. Petersburg, 1824.
au moyen-âge, Leipzig, 1923, II, p. 110. 4. Rashid ad-din, Jami' at-Tavarikh, Biblio-
3. M. Abel-Rémusat, Mémoires sur les rela- thèque Nationale, MS. Suppl. persan 1113, fol.
tions politiques des princes chrétiens, et particu-275b.

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258 BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE

banda II,
(October, 1305 (Rabiť Shah,
705the architect
h.) ).5 Theof
according inside
heavy decorated curtains to the historian
were torn A
al-Kashani,
and the fall of the building the famous
made, Kh
accord
din 'Ali Shah.7 The seventh
ing to a contemporary Il-Khan also
account, a real

Fig. 2 Godman collection; Staatliche Museen, Berlin; Victoria and Albert Museum
STAR TILES, LUSTRE-PAINTED FAIENCE, c. 1300 (c. 700h.)

earthquake in the city.6 interested himself in the arts of the book.

But however disastrous this experi-
Ibn B akhtishu ť 's work, A l-Manafi ' al-hay-
avan , which 'Abd al-Badi translated into
ment itself was, it made possible the con-
good Persian, was transcribed at Mara-
struction of a great building at Sultaniya,
the Mausoleum of Sultan Öljeitü Khoda-gha in 1300 (699 H.) and illustrated with
numerous miniatures. Ninety-four sheets

5. Abu'l-Qasim 'Abd Allah ibn 'Ali ibn

Muhammad ibn Abi Tahir al-Kashani, Tarikh-i-
7. Abu'l Qasim . . . al-Kashani, op. cit., fol.
Nationale, MS. Suppl. persan 1419,
35; see also Bahrami,fol. 36.sur les car-
Recherches
6. Shams-i-Kashani givesreaux
a de revêtement
very lustré dans la céramique
vivacious ac-
persane du XlIIe au XVeNationale,
count of this episode: Bibliothèque siècle, Paris, 1937,
p. 81. 283b.
MS. Suppl. persan 1443, fol.

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FOR IRANIAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 259

mented with foliate scrolls framing a

short Naskhi inscription. The central
roundel fills all but the points of the star
so that the usual marginal inscription is
lacking, and in each point is a dotted
ovoid, perhaps a degenerate pomegran-
ate motif. This same layout is found in a
large group of star tiles with various cen-
ter patterns: a personage seated in a rich
tent amid flowers; a dancer wearing a
Chinese hat (Fig. 26) (both in the Staat-
liche Museen, Berlin) ;12 and even more
frequently, figures of animals: an ele-
phant (Fig. 2 cř), a panther, a bull, a
horse, two hares, two deer (Fig. 2c), two
^r
cranes, two parakeets (? Fig. 2a) and
Fig. 3 Godman Collection many other such figures. The decorative
STAR TILE, LUSTRE-PAINTED FAIENCE. C. 1300
character in the painting of these tiles
have come down to us, and are (Fig.
now3)in
is very close to that of the
Mana fi
the Morgan Library, New York.8 Iní al-hayavan
a of the Morgan
whole group of illustrations in Library.
this man-
uscript it is easy to recognize the decora-
12. Bahrami, op. cit., p. 118, Fig. 55.
tive quality characteristic of Persian Is-
lamic painting. Animal figures are shown
in close harmony with the movement of
the branches of one or two trees which
constitute the setting, and the combina-
tion forms a decorative design.9
Of the ceramic art of this period, little
is known. It is very probable, however,
that the fourteenth century saw a new
style dawn in the Tabriz workshops.10
Among the dated examples is a half star
tile found recently in the Mausoleum of
Pir-i-Bakran near Isfahan, dated 1299
(698 H.) (Fig. I).11 The interior is orna-

8. A. Yohannan, A Manuscript of the Manafì

al-Ilaiawan in tHe Library of Mr. J. P. Morgan,
Journal of the American Oriental Society , XXXVI,
4 (March, 1917), p. 36; C. Anet, The 'Manafi-
i-Heiwan', The Burlington Magazine , XXIII
(1913), pp. 224-31, 261 (with two color plates) ;
I. Stchoukine, La Peinture iranienne, Bruges,
1936, pp. 78-80.
9. Such as the illustration of the elephants or
that of the panther.
10. For the identification of this Tabriz school
see the discussion in: A. U. Pope, Ceramic art
in Islamic times, A History, in Pope, A SurveyFig. 4 Musée de Sèvres
of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, II, pp. 1639-1641.
TOMBSTONE, GLAZED BRICK. DATED 180 OF THE
11. The tile was discovered by M. Sabha. IL-KHANID ERA (1481 ?)

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260 BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE

mad ibn Pakir,

Ghazan, suspecting whaton the first day of the
innovations
would follow the year
month of Tyr of1300
the Jalalid (700
calendar, ofh.) (too
few examples ofthe
which
year 180 of thehave survived
Il-Khanid era, corres- t
us ) wished to ponding
mark theto the year 886 of
date, andthe Hijra"
on March
11, 1301 (12 (1481 A.D.).
Rajah, 701 h.)13 he inaugu
rated the Il-Khanid era in Iran. Then in small Naskhi characters:
"Death is a Sultan who fears naught, to
The only epigraphic document that
has been noted dated according tonone
this does he accord eternity."
The rest of the inscription gives the
calendar is an epitaph inscribed in a small
last Sura of the Qur'an and a Shi 'ite for-
lustre-painted plaque in the Musée de
mula. The proper names as well as the
Sèvres. The decoration, in relief, consists
style of the decoration make possible an
of a niche in the centre and on the sides
attribution to Khurasan shops. The Il-
two floral motifs (Fig. 4). 14 The main
Khanid date has apparently been mis-
inscription, in a careful Naskhi script,
calculated by five years and should be
reads: "He [God alone] is eternal. The
"185" unless there were three hundred
death of a well-born girl [ hurat ], named
and seventy days in an Il-Khanid year.
Bibi Malik Khatun, daughter of Muham- But this last is only a surmise.

THE SO-CALLED POLISH CARPETS

By Kurt Erdmann
The so-called Polish carpets, class has recently been demonstrated;2
of which
there are several hundred in the museums and the third group also, the embroid-
and collections of Europe and America,ered pieces, can be accepted as belonging
are usually thought to have been the to this type only with reservations. Few
most expensive products of the Persian examples are known, but the designs are
carpet factories in the seventeenth cen- far more often related to those of the
tury. As a result, there has recently been tapestry woven carpets than to any others,
a tendency to take for granted that any and it is by no means certain that most
especially valuable silk carpet mentioned of them were made in Persia at all.
in a document must, even without further Thus only the first group of knotted
evidence, have been a piece of this type. carpets remains as so-called Polish car-
In the last comprehensive discussion pets. These have been divided3 into those
of this class of carpets1 three groups are that are brocaded and those that are not.
distinguished on technical grounds : ( 1 ) But among those that are not brocaded,
knotted; (2) tapestry woven; (3) em- at least two series can be distinguished,
broidered. The fallacy of including the and among the more numerous brocaded
second, or tapestry woven group in this pieces at least three. The differences in
quality between these last are conspicu-
13. Hamd Allah Mustawfi al-Qazvini, Ta'-
ous, and the interrelations are not always
rikh-i-Guzida, ed. E. G. Browne, Leyden-London,clear.
1910-13 (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series , XIV ), This is not the place to go into the dif-
I, p. 595.
ferences that distinguish these various
14. The photograph was taken by the kind groups. The standard average type which
permission of the Curator of the museum.

2. Erdmann, Persische Wirkteppiche der Safa-

1. M. S. Dimand, Loan Exhibition of Persian
widenzeit, Pantheon , 1932, pp. 227-31.
rugs of the so-called Polish Type, New York
(Metropolitan Museum of Art), 1930. 3. Dimand, op. cit., p. VII.

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