The Journal of the David Collection is one of only two current periodicals devoted to the publication of recent museum acquisitions in Islamic art. It is particularly welcome, since museum curators increasingly lack the time to devote themselves to this vital branch of their profession, but it takes a lot of work and it is much to be hoped that the momentum it has generated will be maintained in the future. The present volume is largely devoted to substantial articles: Oliver Watson, “The case of the Ottoman table” (pp. 22–53); Sheila R. Canby, “An illustrated Shahnameh of 1650: Isfahan in the service of Yazd” (pp. 54–112); Will Kwiatkowski, “The David Collection stele: A new source for Firuz Shah Tughluq's Jajnagar campaign” (pp. 114–29); John Seyller, “Two Mughal mirror cases” (pp. 130–59); and Gijs Kruijtzer, “Pomp before disgrace: A Dutchman commissions two Golconda miniatures on the eve of the Mughal conquest” (pp. 160–82).
Will Kwiatkowski discusses a handsome Gujarati stele (inv. no. 33/2002) with a Persian text inscribed in dense naskh erected by Ibrahim Na'ib Barbak, the half-brother of Firuzshah, reporting two of his triumphs, the first the sack of Lakhnauti in Bengal (759/1357–58), and the second the defeat of the Rai of Jajnagar in Orissa two years later. Among the rich booty from the latter were idols, brought back to Baruch (Broach) and Cambay (Kambhat) for the faithful to desecrate, and the stele is in fact a reuse of a fragment of the aureole of a large Jain figure of a tirthankara.
John Seyller discusses a mirror-case in the David Collection (inv. no. 1/2009), depicting a scene from the Gulistān of Saʿdi, signed Balchand (c. 1610–15), adapted c. 1640 by Murar, who enlarged it from its original oblong format. The reverse bears another scene from the Gulistān signed Abu ’l-Hasan c. 1610–15, also originally oblong, and also enlarged by Murar, as is the painting on the inner shutter signed ʿAbid c.1610–15.
A second mirror-case in the Freer (inv. no. FGA 2005.4), dated 1 Ramadan 1037 (5 May 1628) was evidently intended to commemorate the marriage of Muhammad Akbar, a son of Awrangzeb, to Salima Banu Begam in 1672 and bears their portraits. Both are signed Manohar – nothing to do, of course, with Jahangir's famous painter of that name. More sensationally, the inner shutter has a female portrait signed ʿAbid, naked to the waist but for her magnificent jewels, after a European print of “Poetry” from a set showing the seven liberal arts by Hendrik Goltzius. Just why she should be represented on this particular mirror-case is unexplained, but Seyller, through an ingenious eliminative argument, convincingly identifies her as Shah Jahan's beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
Gijs Kruijtzer discusses two Golconda paintings (inv. no. 2008.42–3) of a Dutchman luxuriously dressed in the French fashions of c. 1670, recently acquired by the Collection and adds a welcome chapter to the history of painting in the Muslim kingdoms of India. In the 1660s the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had established a factory at Hyderabad, the capital of the sultanate of Golconda. Kruijtzer interprets an otherwise incomprehensible branch with fruit, held by an attendant, as a canting allusion to Cornelis van der Bogaerde (sc. “Orchard”), who was Chief Factor there in the 1680s. This Dutch patronage was not, however, to have much of a future, for the fall of Golconda to Awrangzeb in 1687 spelled the end of Sultanate painting.
Oliver Watson republishes an Ottoman twelve-sided wooden table inlaid with ivory and set with an exceptionally large Iznik tile fired in one piece which was acquired by the V&A in the early 1980s and dates both tile and table to c. 1557, the date of the inauguration of the mosque of Süleymaniye. Unfortunately, the article does not match the magisterial survey its tone suggests.
Quite different is Sheila Canby's authoritative study of the Muʿin Musavvir Shāhnāmah completed at Yazd on 15 Rabiʿi 1060 (18 March 1650) by the scribe Muhammad Salih b. Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad al-Kirmani, with illumination, in Isfahani style, by Mulla Mu'min Shirazi and twenty-seven illustrations signed by Muʿin Musavvir. These mark a significant stage in his career, for it is the only one of his manuscripts in which he figures as sole artist. From his dated signatures on the paintings, as much as two years before the completion date, Dr Canby deduces, they were executed more or less in the same order in which the manuscript was written. In addition, she calculates, there must originally have been at least fifteen more. She illustrates all but three of these, and provides charts of the paintings in their proper order with exact details of the text associated with them. Her comments on the individual illustrations bring out his marked originality and include interesting suggestions regarding the models he used. This is an important contribution to the history of the Isfahan school and a major addition to the corpus of this industrious painter.
