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Lot Essay
Hajji 'Abbas is to steel work what 'Asadullah Isfahani is to sword blades and Behzad is to painting: an artist whose name immediately conjures up the concept of the very best quality of all in his field, with the result that his name has been added with enormous frequency to pieces which may or may not be of an appropriate date but which are thought to be of better than average quality. Often this was done at the time of manufacture. One problem is discerning whether the attribution is just wishful thinking or whether, as is thought to be the case with Muhammad Zaman, there just happened to be a number of artists with this name working in the same medium over a period of time.
James Allan has tentatively separated out the work of three craftsmen in steel (one can hardly call them steelworkers) who bore this name, the first and most important being the maker of the kashkul in the Nuhad es-Said Collection (Allan, James W.: Islamic Metalwork: The Nuhad es-Said Collection, London, 1982, no.26, pp.114-117). A later kashkul in the Hermitage Museum bears the same name but is signed in a different way and bears the date of 1207 (Loukonine, Vladimir and Ivanov, Anatoli: L'Art Persan, Bournemouth and St. Peteresburg, 1995, no.254, pp.245-6). In their discussion on this piece the authors express some reservation about the Safavid dating of the Nuhad es-Said example. The Hermitage also contains a large steel peacock signed by the same artist on its breast, which is dated to end of the 19th century, thus implying another artist (Loukonine and Ivanov, op. cit., no.277, p.257). All that can be said in the present case is that the quality is certainly such that an attribution to a master craftsman is appropriate!
James Allan has tentatively separated out the work of three craftsmen in steel (one can hardly call them steelworkers) who bore this name, the first and most important being the maker of the kashkul in the Nuhad es-Said Collection (Allan, James W.: Islamic Metalwork: The Nuhad es-Said Collection, London, 1982, no.26, pp.114-117). A later kashkul in the Hermitage Museum bears the same name but is signed in a different way and bears the date of 1207 (Loukonine, Vladimir and Ivanov, Anatoli: L'Art Persan, Bournemouth and St. Peteresburg, 1995, no.254, pp.245-6). In their discussion on this piece the authors express some reservation about the Safavid dating of the Nuhad es-Said example. The Hermitage also contains a large steel peacock signed by the same artist on its breast, which is dated to end of the 19th century, thus implying another artist (Loukonine and Ivanov, op. cit., no.277, p.257). All that can be said in the present case is that the quality is certainly such that an attribution to a master craftsman is appropriate!