Decorative Gold Bands in 16th Century Persian Art

Detail - "Court Scene in a Garden".signed by Abdollah-e Mozahheb and dated 15811.

Decorative Gold Bands

The important part of a group effort such as the Haft Awrang of Jami is the spirit of teamwork and the specter of competition that it engenders. The artists are elevated by the exposure to each other and are challenged by the competitive nature of such an endeavor. I believe that the artists did better work as a group than if they had worked alone and that they learned from one another. What it also causes is very similar technique. I think that once we magnify the work small differences will allow us to discern styles.

The first group which I shall call Gold Band Group One. This is the group that I most closely identified with Abdullah. I think of this as an SN design. As I collect examples I will try to refine the grouping. .

Gold Band Group One

	Detail - "Court Scene in a Garden". signed by Abdollah-e Mozahheb and dated 1581
	Detail Signed Frontispiece Divan of Hafiz, 1581 - 1586 2. signed by Abdollah-e Mozahheb and dated 1581
	Detail - "Entering the capitol of Egypt" MSS plate 76. 3
	Detail - "Vision of Angels" 4 MSS plate 8 & 96 Attributed to S. C. Welch's Painter D5
	Detail "Frontispiece of the Shahname of Ferdowsi" Probably Shiraz (?) 15606 This piece is problematic because it is very close to the work of Abdollah-e Mozahheb but not identical. This is from a book that has a number of works that are attributed to a man refered to as  Painter A7 or Painter B8 (Shiraz).
The deeper I get into this project the more I see the influence of the mid-sixteenth century Shiraz School of art. Detail - Timur enthroned" Shiraz 9 From a Shiraz Shahnama of 1523. Soudavar pg. 245 Detail "Zafar-nama of Sharaf al-din Ali Yazdi" Tabriz 1529 Here in Pate 50 which is usually called "The European Envoys present the son of the Ottoman Sultan Murad I"10

Gold Band Group Two

At this point there are other gold bands in the Freer Haft Awrang of Jami for which I have not attempted even a preliminary attribution.

	4 strand Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Salaman u Absal - Haft Awrang of Jami`11. FGA 46.12, Folio 182 B
	4 strand Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Layli u Majnum - Haft Awrang of Jami`12. MSS plate 35
	4 strand Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Khiradnama-i Iskandari - Haft Awrang of Jami`13. MSS plate 37

Gold Band Group Three

	Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Subhat al-abrar - Haft Awrang of Jami`14. MSS plate 33
	Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Silsilat al-dhahab - Haft Awrang of Jami`15. MSS plate 7
	Detail Masnavi heading Folio of Tufat al-ahrar - Haft Awrang of Jami`16. MSS plate 34
	Detail - Prince Drinking Wine. Tabriz Circa 1520 Please note the Decorative Gold Bands in a miniature attributed to Shaykhzadeh

An odd Gold Band

This one strikes me as weak in execution as if an artist were copying a technique that he had not mastered.

Detail "The Fickle Old Lover"14

Related work

• A City Dweller Desecrates a Garden
• A Comparison of Figural Representation
• Pruning Scars as a Tool in Attribution
• Painter D as Abdol-Aziz?
• Hats and Stringed Instruments
• On Tying a Turban
• Abdullah at the court in Kabul?
• Decorative Gold Bands in the Haft Awrang of Jami

1. Soudavar, Abolala. Art of the Persian Court. . New York: Rizzoli, 1992, pages 231 plate 90A.
2. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 302, plate 206.
3. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 118, folio 100b.
4. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 148, folio 147a.
5. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 151.
6. Soudavar, Abolala. Art of the Persian Court. . New York: Rizzoli, 1992, pages 245.
7. Guest, Grace Dunham, Shiraz Painting in the Sixteenth Century.
8. Guest, Grace Dunham, Shiraz Painting in the Sixteenth Century. Plate 27 b.
9. Gray, Basil. Persian Painting. Page 132, folio 520b.
10. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 325, folio 182b.
11. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 325, folio 225b.
12. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 52, folio 273b.
13. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 50, folio 140b.
14. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 24, folio 70b.
15. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page 51, folio 200b.
16. Simpson, Marianna Shreve, and Farhad, Massumeh. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang, A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. Page156, folio 162a.

J. Barry O'Connell Jr.  - Islamic art and Persian Miniature Paintings