WITH PAINTINGS SIGNED SHAYKHI MUDHAHHIB, SAFAVID SHIRAZ, DATED AH 944 / 1537-8 AD

"His carpets are gardens, his gardens carpeted with flowers" (Robert Hillenbrand, Imperial Images in Persian Painting, Edinburgh, 1977, p. 88)

Shaykhi Mudhahhib, the painter responsible for the luxurious paintings in the present Khamsa of Nizami, is not otherwise recorded, although the vanishingly small signatures present in three of the paintings invite the possibility that his signature has been overlooked in other manuscripts. A 'master Shaykhi' was commissioned by Sultan-Khalil Aq-Qoyunlu (d. AH 884⁄1478 AD) to paint a luxurious Khamsa of Nizami alongside master Darwish Muhammad according to that manuscript's colophon (W.M. Thackston, A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, Cambridge, 1989, p.333), but the terminus ante quem for that commission, at least sixty years before the execution of the present paintings, is surely too early for that Shaykhi to be the same artist. No artist by the name of Shaykhi is mentioned by Qadi Ahmad, but Sam Mirza briefly mentions a 'Shaykhi Kermani', who was "unrivalled as a painter and also perfect as a mulla" and may possibly be identified with Shaykhi Mudhahhib (M. Mahfuz-ul Haq, "Persian painters, illuminators and calligraphists, etc. in the 16th century, A.D.", Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 28, 1932, p. 242).

Artistically, Shaykhi follows in the footsteps of Qasim bin 'Ali, Sa'd Mudhahhib and Mahmud Mudhahhib, who were all active in Shiraz during the first three decades of the 16th century, and whose work is associated with the asitana ('threshold', referring to a saint's tomb or shrine) of Mawlana Husam al-Din Ibrahim (Lale Uluç, 'A Group of Artists Associated with the 'Asitana' of Husam al-Din Ibrahim' Artibus Asiae, 67.1, 2007, pp. 113-45). The ten works that state they were copied at the asitana are datable to the years between circa 1515 and 1528 and, like the present manuscript, they are luxurious manuscripts covering the high points of Persian and Turkish literature. All but one of the manuscripts is illustrated (op.cit., pp.113-4).

According to B.W. Robinson, Shaykhi's epithet mudhahhib ('the Illuminator' or 'the Gilder') suggests that he functioned as both illuminator and painter in the present manuscript, possibly as a means to keep costs for his commercial workshop down (B.W. Robinson, 'Painter-Illuminators of Sixteenth-Century Shiraz', Iran XVII, 1979, p. 107). His expertise in illumination and gilding is evidenced by the ample use of gold throughout the manuscript, which is applied with consistent skill and confidence and shows little flaking. Robinson also identifies the high quality of illuminated motifs, for example in the textiles and architectural surfaces of the paintings, in contrast to the relatively wooden execution of the figures, as further evidence for the fact that Shaykhi's considerable talents lay primarily in illumination.

A manuscript of Nizami's Khamsa in the Ali-Sabah Collection is signed by Muhammad al-Katib Shirazi, who copied one of the manuscripts associated with the asitana of Husam al-Din Ibrahim, and dated 2 Sha'ban AH 943⁄14 January 1537 AD is particularly close to the present manuscript (acc.no. LNS 4 MS; Adel T. Adamova and Manijeh Bayani, Persian Painting: The Arts of the Book and Portraiture, London: Thames & Hudson, 2015, pp.378-408). The parallels between the two manuscripts are perhaps most obvious when comparing the painting of Bahrum Gur and the princess in the Lapis Lazuli Pavilion in the present manuscript with the same scene in the White Pavillion of the Muhammad al-Katib manuscript (op.cit. p.402), as the rendition of the two figures is so similar that it seems likely the figures were pounced from the same template (cf. op.cit.,p.385). Another template appears to have been used in both manuscripts for the fainting Majnun (op.cit., p.394).

The superior quality of the present manuscript in contrast to the Muhammad al-Katib manuscript is most evident in the rendition of the Lapis Lazuli Pavilion itself, where Shaykhi uses his talent for illumination to full effect. Here, the luxurious textiles that form the curtains in the bottom left and right of the painting convey a softness that is clearly distinguishable from the architectural tilework. Similarly, the tripartite composition in the central two columns, with the signature of Shaykhi in the centre of the page, showcases his skill by conveying the three-dimensionality of the dome within a Shirazi school of painting that is characterized by a level of flatness perhaps owed to its painters' training as illuminators (op.cit., p. 384).

List of illustrations:
Frontispiece (1v, 2r), Battue (Hunt).
In Makhzan-i Asrar (f.16v), The story of Sultan Sanjar and the old woman.
In Khusraw u Shirin (f.44v), Khusraw espies Shirin bathing.
In Khusraw u Shirin (f.50v), Khusraw and Shirin play polo.
In Khusraw u Shirin (f.65v), The picture of Shirin upon that rock of Bisutun, signed "May a fortunate image come from the thoughts of Farhad. Shaykhi Mudhahhib made it in the year 945 (1538-9 AD).
In Khusraw u Shirin (f.91v), Khusraw at council in Ctesiphon.
In Layla wa Majnun (f.112v), Qays and Layla at school.
In Layla wa Majnun (f.134v), Majnun among the beasts.
In Layla wa Majnun (f.155r), Layla and Majnun faint upon seeing each other.
In Haft Paykar (f.177v), Bahram Gur shoots a wild ass.
In Haft Paykar (f.200v), Bahram seated on Wednesday in the lapis lazuli dome, signed "toil (mushaqqat) of Shaykhi Mudhahhib in the year 945 (1538-9 AD).
In Iskandarnama (f.237v), Iskandar battles the Zanj.
In Iskandarnama (f.261r), Iskandar in council.
In Iskandarnama (f.287r), Iskandar contemplates a magical crystal, signed "painting of Shaykhi Mudhahhib, year 944 (1537-8 AD).
In Iskandarnama (f.299v), Iskandar battles the Rus.
In Iskandarnama (f.328v), Iskandar with the Seven Sages.