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Lot Essay
This portrait exemplifies the best characteristics of the second period of Bukharan painting of the 1530-40s, led by the patronage of one of the great post-Timurid bibliophiles of Central Asia, the Shaybanid Sultan 'Abd al-Aziz (r.1539-50). The painting is attributable to the pre-eminent artist of the time, Mahmud Muzahhib. Although the signature ‘Mahmud the portraitist’ (Mahmud-i shabih-kash) is unrecorded elsewhere, the tall kulah, with its tight turban wrapping, and the finely shaped moon-eyebrows resemble the early work of Mahmud Muzahhib, “the best and apparently the leading miniaturist of the so-called Bukhara school" (Binyon, Wilkinson and Gray, Persian Miniature Painting, New York, 1971, p.106).
Mahmud excelled in all of the arts of the book. He is first recorded as an illuminator, as his name suggests, working in Herat on a sumptuous double page for Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506) (Armenag Sakisian, 'Mahmud Mudhahib, miniaturiste, enlumineur et calligraphe persan, Ars Islamica, IV, 1937, p.338). As a calligrapher and painter, he was taught, according to contemporary sources, by the famous Mir ‘Ali Haravi and Bihzad, being the latter’s Eastern pupil, while the Safavid master Aqa Mirak was his Western pupil (Ebadollah Bahari, ‘The Sixteenth Century School of Bukhara Painting and the Arts of the Book’, Andrew J. Newman (ed.), Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East: Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period, Leiden 2003, p.253-5). Firuza Abdullaeva-Melville and Christiane Gruber have hailed him as “the most able” and “most distinguished” pupil of Bihzad (Abdullaeva-Melville, ‘A Friend’s Tribute: Mir ‘Ali for Hilali’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 32:4, 2022, p.933; Gruber, ‘The Gulbenkian Baharistan: ‘Abd al-‘Aziz & the Bihzadian Tradition in 16th-Century Bukhara’, in Persian, International Congress on Master Kemal al-Din Behzad, Tehran 2005). Notably, our youth is similar to a young man depicted by Bihzad in 1485, similarly leaning towards a tree while holding his robe (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, MS 163, fol.38r; Bahari, Bihzad: Master of Persian Painting, London, 1997, fig.24). A very similar painting produced in the Safavid royal atelier in Tabriz and attributed to Aqa Mirak, circa 1530, was sold in these Rooms, 25 June 2020, lot 48. This highlights the shared 'Bihzadian' visual language of the Persian and Uzbek courts and supports the association of our painting with Mahmud Muzahhib.
As with many Timurid artists, around 1529 he was taken to Bukhara by the newly ascendant 'Ubaydullah Khan (r.1512-39) whose capital it was (Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, Los Angeles, 1989, p.306). Mahmud worked particularly closely with 'Abd al-‘Aziz, and his later works come from the period of 'Abd al-‘Aziz's successors, Yar Muhammad (1550-54) and 'Abdullah (1557-98). 'Ubaydullah’s Bukhara was, as described by Mirza Muhammad Haydar Dughlat, a Chagatayid and no apologist for the Uzbeks, “such a centre of arts and sciences that it recalls Herat in the days of Mirza Sultan Husayn (Bayqara)" (Mukaddema Mukhtarovna Ashrafi-Aini, 'The School of Bukhara to c.1550,’ in Basil Gray, ed., Arts of the Book in Central Asia, Paris and London 1979, p.264). This is high praise indeed.
Mahmud’s recorded works are dated between 1535-36 AD and 1555-56 AD, usually illustrations within manuscripts and signed either Mahmud Muzahhib or Mahmud Musavvir (Mahmud the painter) (Bahari, op.cit. p.255[NM3] ). Amongst them are a series of five paintings from a Gulistan of Sa’di which sold in these Rooms (4 October 2012, lots 12-13, 25 April 2013, lots 26-27, and 10 October 2013, lot 15).
However, Mahmud is also known to have done a small number of full page paintings similar to ours, one of which sold in these Rooms 25 April, 2024, lot 74. Four comparable paintings are in the Museum of the Astan-e Qods-i Razavi, Mashhad. They were studied by Binyon and Bahari and three are signed by Mahmud (Binyon et al., op.cit., p.122). Like ours, they are all studies of single or paired figures, with comparable subjects - ‘Three Damsels from China’, ‘A Youth offering an apple to a lady’, ‘An Angel’, and a portrait of Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava’i.
The style of the nasta'liq on the Mir ‘Ali Shir painting and the 'Three Damsels from China' is very similar to ours - both in a minute (khafi) style (Bahari, op.cit., 2003, p.255; Bahari, op.cit., 1997, fig.12). More interesting, a full page painting of two lovers by Mahmud’s pupil, ‘Abdullah (d. circa 1575), includes two couplets from Jami (d.1492) that are strikingly similar to ours, beginning with the almost identical ay qadd-i tu sarv-i nazparvar (Binyon et al., op.cit., pl.LXXVII-A). It thus seems likely that the calligraphy, and with it the signature, is contemporary to the painting. It reaffirms the quality of Mahmud's work and the style he founded. It is no surprise that his name and skill travelled beyond Transoxania in his own lifetime. In India the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r.1556-1605) was a collector of his work, while Mahmud’s pupils were active in his court.
We would like to thank Jaimee Comstock-Skipp for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.
Mahmud excelled in all of the arts of the book. He is first recorded as an illuminator, as his name suggests, working in Herat on a sumptuous double page for Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506) (Armenag Sakisian, 'Mahmud Mudhahib, miniaturiste, enlumineur et calligraphe persan, Ars Islamica, IV, 1937, p.338). As a calligrapher and painter, he was taught, according to contemporary sources, by the famous Mir ‘Ali Haravi and Bihzad, being the latter’s Eastern pupil, while the Safavid master Aqa Mirak was his Western pupil (Ebadollah Bahari, ‘The Sixteenth Century School of Bukhara Painting and the Arts of the Book’, Andrew J. Newman (ed.), Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East: Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period, Leiden 2003, p.253-5). Firuza Abdullaeva-Melville and Christiane Gruber have hailed him as “the most able” and “most distinguished” pupil of Bihzad (Abdullaeva-Melville, ‘A Friend’s Tribute: Mir ‘Ali for Hilali’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 32:4, 2022, p.933; Gruber, ‘The Gulbenkian Baharistan: ‘Abd al-‘Aziz & the Bihzadian Tradition in 16th-Century Bukhara’, in Persian, International Congress on Master Kemal al-Din Behzad, Tehran 2005). Notably, our youth is similar to a young man depicted by Bihzad in 1485, similarly leaning towards a tree while holding his robe (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, MS 163, fol.38r; Bahari, Bihzad: Master of Persian Painting, London, 1997, fig.24). A very similar painting produced in the Safavid royal atelier in Tabriz and attributed to Aqa Mirak, circa 1530, was sold in these Rooms, 25 June 2020, lot 48. This highlights the shared 'Bihzadian' visual language of the Persian and Uzbek courts and supports the association of our painting with Mahmud Muzahhib.
As with many Timurid artists, around 1529 he was taken to Bukhara by the newly ascendant 'Ubaydullah Khan (r.1512-39) whose capital it was (Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, Los Angeles, 1989, p.306). Mahmud worked particularly closely with 'Abd al-‘Aziz, and his later works come from the period of 'Abd al-‘Aziz's successors, Yar Muhammad (1550-54) and 'Abdullah (1557-98). 'Ubaydullah’s Bukhara was, as described by Mirza Muhammad Haydar Dughlat, a Chagatayid and no apologist for the Uzbeks, “such a centre of arts and sciences that it recalls Herat in the days of Mirza Sultan Husayn (Bayqara)" (Mukaddema Mukhtarovna Ashrafi-Aini, 'The School of Bukhara to c.1550,’ in Basil Gray, ed., Arts of the Book in Central Asia, Paris and London 1979, p.264). This is high praise indeed.
Mahmud’s recorded works are dated between 1535-36 AD and 1555-56 AD, usually illustrations within manuscripts and signed either Mahmud Muzahhib or Mahmud Musavvir (Mahmud the painter) (Bahari, op.cit. p.255[NM3] ). Amongst them are a series of five paintings from a Gulistan of Sa’di which sold in these Rooms (4 October 2012, lots 12-13, 25 April 2013, lots 26-27, and 10 October 2013, lot 15).
However, Mahmud is also known to have done a small number of full page paintings similar to ours, one of which sold in these Rooms 25 April, 2024, lot 74. Four comparable paintings are in the Museum of the Astan-e Qods-i Razavi, Mashhad. They were studied by Binyon and Bahari and three are signed by Mahmud (Binyon et al., op.cit., p.122). Like ours, they are all studies of single or paired figures, with comparable subjects - ‘Three Damsels from China’, ‘A Youth offering an apple to a lady’, ‘An Angel’, and a portrait of Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava’i.
The style of the nasta'liq on the Mir ‘Ali Shir painting and the 'Three Damsels from China' is very similar to ours - both in a minute (khafi) style (Bahari, op.cit., 2003, p.255; Bahari, op.cit., 1997, fig.12). More interesting, a full page painting of two lovers by Mahmud’s pupil, ‘Abdullah (d. circa 1575), includes two couplets from Jami (d.1492) that are strikingly similar to ours, beginning with the almost identical ay qadd-i tu sarv-i nazparvar (Binyon et al., op.cit., pl.LXXVII-A). It thus seems likely that the calligraphy, and with it the signature, is contemporary to the painting. It reaffirms the quality of Mahmud's work and the style he founded. It is no surprise that his name and skill travelled beyond Transoxania in his own lifetime. In India the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r.1556-1605) was a collector of his work, while Mahmud’s pupils were active in his court.
We would like to thank Jaimee Comstock-Skipp for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.