Transitioning out of the Timurid period: the origins of Abū’l-Khairid arts of the book ca. 1490–1520
Online ZOOM lecture by Jaimee Comstock-Skipp | University of Oxford
Abstract Art historians have long lumped together Timurid manuscript illustrations from the late 15th century as either belonging to “the school of Bihzad” or simply “the Herat school” of painting. However, whether this site or style was localized in a single workshop remains to be seen. The talk will unpack what is meant by “Bihzadian” and the “Herat school” in the late-Timurid period, and its reverberations and reiterations in the arts associated with the subsequent Abū’l-Khairid (commonly known as Shaybanid Uzbek) dynasty administering the centers formerly held by the Timurids in Transoxiana. Manuscript makers continued late-Timurid practices for decades after the broader Timurid collapse in 1507.
The discussion will distinguish discernible idioms attributed to Bihzad, or to those in his circle and copyists working in this mode, that continue to appear in illustrations adorning Turco-Persianate manuscripts made between 1490–1523. When present, colophons are not helpful in determining the manuscripts’ full provenance including textual and visual components completed at different times and in different places. The manuscripts demonstrate how artisans and styles that are often classified as late-Timurid also operated in early Abū’l-Khairid contexts and workshops through the 1520s. The discussion will delve into the very origins of Abū’l-Khairid arts of the book and their earliest illustrated manuscripts posited to be produced harnessing talent in Herat and Samarqand; not Bukhara, which they are often indiscriminately associated. Case studies will nuance the onset of Abū’l-Khairid artistic production in a particularly tumultuous era.
Please register with: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HgfW2n7fRAiBjrxkEIKv5w
Poster (PDF)
This is the 1st lecture in the webinar series for the academic year 2024-25 - organised by the NoMansLand research project (FWF Y 1232) dedicated to the study of Islamic manuscripts in pre-modern Iran and Central Asia.
Convenor: Project team "Nomads' Manuscripts Landscape"
Visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings of past lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/@IFI_Media
For a list of upcoming lectures in the webinar series, please see Webinar series "Pre-modern Islamic manuscripts"