Collection: Persian Miniatures

Persian Miniature painting covers the tradition of small format manuscript illustration produced in Iran and the wider Iranian cultural sphere from the late thirteenth century onward. The discipline took shape under the Mongol Ilkhanids from 1256 to 1335, was refined by the Jalayirids and the Timurid courts of Herat and Samarkand from 1370 to 1507, reached its high point under the Safavids from 1501 to 1736, and continued under the Qajars from 1789 to 1925. The format is the page bound illuminated codex, with text and image integrated within the same opening.

The Timurid workshop in Herat under Sultan Husayn Bayqara produced the period's most influential master, Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (c. 1450–1535), who later moved to the Safavid capital of Tabriz under Shah Ismail. Sultan Muhammad, Mir Sayyid Ali, Aqa Mirak, and Mir Musavvir worked the Safavid royal kitabkhana under Shah Tahmasp, producing the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp between 1525 and 1535, with its 258 illustrations the apogee of the tradition. Reza Abbasi (c. 1565–1635) shifted late Safavid practice toward the single page album painting and the calligraphically inflected figure under Shah Abbas I in Isfahan. The major narrative cycles drawn upon were Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, Nizami's Khamseh, and Attar's Conference of the Birds. The visual language combines high keyed mineral colour, gold leaf, multilevel composition, and an absence of Western perspective.