Walters Ms. W.771, Album of Persian and Indian miniatures, calligraphy, and European engravings

W.771

Album of Persian and Indian miniatures, calligraphy, and European engravings

Vernacular: مرقع

This album (muraqqaʿ), in an accordion format, was presented as a gift in 1886 to its former owner. It contains twenty-five leaves of Persian and Indian paintings and calligraphies, photographs, and European prints. The pages range in date from the eleventh century AH / seventeenth CE to the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE. The calligraphies, in nastaʿlīq and shikastah scripts, are signed by Bunyād al-Tabrīzī (dated 1045 AH / 1635-6 CE), Ibn Muḥammad Riz̤ā Muḥammad ʿAlī (dated 1151 AH / 1738-9 CE), and ʿAbd Allāh and Ḥakīm, who are possibly ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī and Ḥakīm Rukna. The Persian paintings include Safavid, Zand, and Qajar examples. The Reception at the court of Shah 'Abbas I (fol. 50a) dates to the early eleventh century AH / seventeenth CE. There are standing portrait paintings and images of female sitters that belong to the late Zand and early Qajar periods. The Indian examples are Mughal, with one erotic scene that is attributable to the Deccan. The European prints include English portraiture and French religious prints based on Evangelicae historiae imagines (Antwerp, 1593) and Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia (Antwerp, 1594) by the Jesuit priest Jerome Nadal. In certain examples, scenes are labeled with the Armenian alphabet. The red leather leather binding with central lobed oval with floral motifs dates to the late thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE.

11th century AH / 17th CE -- 13th century AH / 19th CE

Iran, India, and Europe

Album

Historical

The primary language in this manuscript is Persian.

Paper

Mounted on pasteboard

Foliation: 25

21.0 cm wide by 36.0 cm high

1. Title: Muraqqaʿ
2. Hand note: Written in nastaʿlīq and shikastah scripts
3. Decoration note: Multicolored borders, some with illuminated floral motifs

fol. W.771.50a:

1. 
2. Title: Reception at the court of Shah 'Abbas I
3. Form: Illustration

fol. W.771.50b:

1. 
2. Title: Photograph
3. Form: Photograph

The binding is not original.

Late thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE; red leather (no flap); central lobed oval with floral motifs

Museum purchase with funds provided by the S. and A. P. Fund, 1960

Sims, Eleanor. "The European Print Sources of Paintings by the Seventeenth Century Persian Painter Muhammad Zaman ibn Haji Yusuf of Qum.” In Le Stampe e la Diffusione delle Immagini e Degli Stili, H. Zerner, ed. (Bologna: CLUEB, 1983), 73-83.

Diba, Laya. "Persian Painting in the Eighteenth Century. Tradition and Transmission." Muqarnas 6 (1989), 147-160.

Simpson, Marianna Shreve. "Shah 'Abbas and his Picture Bible." In The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Bible. (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2002), 200, cat. 41.

Landau, Amy. "Farangi-sazi at Isfahan: The Court Painter Muhammad Zaman, the Armenians of New Julfa and Shah Sulayman (1666-1694)." PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2009.

Principal cataloger: Gacek, Adam

Catalogers: Landau, Amy; Smith, Sita

Editor: Bockrath, Diane

Conservators: Jewell, Stephanie; Quandt, Abigail

Contributors: Barrera, Christina; Emery, Doug; Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William; Simpson, Shreve; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.; Valle, Chiara

The Walters Art Museum

Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.