The art world has always been some steps ahead of the world of political history when it comes to interpreting the legacy of the Mongols and their cultural contributions. Art historians had recognized the cultural wealth of the Ilkhanate and the strong Chinese influence on the Iranian art of the period long before Thomas Allsen published his ground-breaking research in his far-reaching study, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge University Press, 2001). They were already celebrating the craftsmanship and delicacy of Chinese ceramics flooding into Ilkhanid Iran by land and sea and the magnificence of the illustrated manuscripts from the ateliers of Tabriz while traditional Mongolists were wallowing in the hyperbole of Arab historians such as Ibn al-Athir and the poisoned words of anti-Ilkhanate Mamluk propagandists. Unlike their political counterparts, art historians had long recognized the contributions that the artists, artisans and wordsmiths from the courts of the Ilkhanid and Yuan dynasty kings had been contributing to world culture.
Iranian chinoiserie has been recognized and studied since the early twentieth century. The clear Chinese influence pervading late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century manuscript copies of Rashīd al-Dīn's Jama' al-Tavārīkh demonstrates the marriage of eastern and western traditions. Since the extent of the influence of Chinese art on Iranian art forms became clear, there has been increasing emphasis on the significance of the Mongol period. Allsen's 2001 study of Iranian/Chinese political, cultural, and commercial relations during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was followed by an inspiring exhibition in New York and Los Angeles and the equally magnificent catalogue edited by Linda Komaroff, which finally dispensed with the idea of Chinggisids as cultural pariahs and philistines. In 2006 Komaroff published her follow-up collection of papers which focused on artist achievements during the Mongol period, with an emphasis on East–West relations and cross-cultural fertilization and transmission. Much of the work endorsed Allsen's pioneering research into the Chinggisids acting as their own cultural brokers. Yuka Kadoi's Islamic Chinoiserie continues this theme and analyses in great depth the reality of the Chinese influence on Iranian art. It is an immensely important and deeply impressive study of the collaborative epoch of Chinese and Persian artwork and will doubtless remain the definitive work on this unique period in world history for some time to come.
The book is divided into six main chapters, three dealing with textiles, ceramics, and metalwork respectively, and the others examining different aspects of manuscript painting.
Kadoi makes the significant observation that prior to the establishment of the Ilkhanate (c. 1258), and despite a long history of textile trading, the introduction of sericulture and the production of silk for export to Iran, there are few indications of the presence of chinoiserie in Iranian textiles. It was Mongol influence and the demands of the Chinggisid court that transformed the Iranian world into a “truly textile conscious society” (p. 19) with the Persians adopting “luxurious silk clothing and lavishly woven furnishings” which they then reflected in their book illustrations, a practice captured in a double-page illustration (p. 210) depicting an unknown Persian courtier in colourful finery with an elaborately feathered hat.
Ceramics hold a special position in East–West trade and cultural exchange, particularly between China and Iran. Chini-i faghfur, Imperial China, furnished Iranian court tables for many centuries but three broad periods, approximating to the ninth, twelfth and seventeenth centuries, when Persian ceramics underwent substantial recognizable changes can be discerned. A lack of knowledge of kiln sites and workshops in medieval Iran remains a major problem despite recent discoveries and research. Iranians were attracted to the translucency, thinness and resonance of Chinese ceramics and soon became actively involved in the technical aspects of the industry, even developing their own material and techniques such as frit-ware. Kashan exported cobalt to the Chinese kilns of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province which then shipped its famous blue-and-white wares back to the west. White wares, celadons and qingbai or blue and white Chinese porcelain and Iranian copies can be found in museums the world over, and the production of these beautiful wares found their ultimate expression under Mongol rule.
Until recently the subject of Ilkhanid and Yuan metalwork as a medium of cultural exchange and expression was explored. Mark Kramarovsky has examined Jochid luxury metal work, though his research sought Western and Islamic influences rather than turning eastwards to explore early Jin influences. Kadoi devotes a chapter to metalwork, and considers briefly glass, woodwork, lacquer and stonework. The perishable nature of woodwork has resulted in a lack of archaeological specimens, though the introduction and use of lacquer in Iran, particularly in the later Timurid period, has ensured the preservation of some choice examples of Chinese furniture from fourteenth-century Iran. However, as Kadoi observes, the most exquisite examples of woodwork (lacquered woodwork in particular) are found not in museums or private collections but in the rich, lavishly illustrated pages of Khwāja Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāma’ al-Tavārīkh. The thrones and footstools heavily lacquered in red are evocative of imperial Song China, and Kadoi provides examples of these details in his accompanying illustrations. For once the famous silver drinks dispenser of the French artisan Guillaume Boucher is not centre-stage; instead, an array of works of superb craftsmanship are put forward for consideration, with minutely detailed illustrations demonstrating the highly developed and sophisticated art of these Chinese and Iranian artisans.
The extended section on manuscripts does justice to a subject which so often defines the period that produced so many exceptional works. The work of Rashīd al-Dīn's Rabʿ -i-Rashīdī and in particular the large-scale production of the Jāma’ al-tavārīkh is covered in some detail, as are illuminated copies of the Shāhnāmeh, the Tārīkh-i-Jahāngushā, the Diez Albums, the Gutman Shāhnāmeh, Kalila wa Dimna, the often underrated Mu'nis al-ahrār and other lesser-known manuscripts from the era. The book succeeds in conveying the rich and indulgent culture of the Ilkhanid court with an abundance of high resolution extracts and reproductions from many manuscripts. While China's contribution to Persian miniature painting of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries has long been recognized, Kadoi provides for the first time a comprehensive overall view. Significantly the development of Iranian painting literally reflects the use of Chinese themes in metalwork, ceramics, fabrics and textiles in the pictures of court life, military campaigns, pastoral scenes and representations from Iranian mythology and even quranic themes.
Yuka Kadoi's study of the cultural merging of Yuan China and Ilkhanid Iran is likely to become the definitive work on this subject and if there is one criticism of the book it is that it is not in a larger format and that the many, excellent illustrations are not given more space to enable a greater appreciation of their worth.
