1 The author wishes to express his sincere gratitude to Mr. Skinner, for allowing him to study and publish this important piece of Persian lacquer work. His thanks are also due to Mr. B. W. Robinson, Keeper of the Department of Metalwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, for reading the manuscript and offering many valuable suggestions.

2 See further below, p. 271.

3 For garden–carpets see Pope, A. U., Survey of Persian art (afterwards referred to as Survey), VI, plates 1116, 1127–33.Google Scholar

4 For marginal drawings, see Ettinghausen, Richard, ‘Manuscript illumination’, Survey, III, p. 1971.Google Scholar

5 The author wishes to thank Professor Khānbābā Bayani for all his kind suggestions.

6 In a personal communication, B. W. Robinson ponits out that inscriptions over doorways are often found on buildings in miniature paintings even when no royal personage is present, and that when a definite prince or monarch is intended his name and title are included in the inscription. In this case, however, the epithet…wa 'l–Khāqān may be considered as a definited indication of a particular individual. Mr. Robinson's other point, the lack of the principal character's investment with the attributes of royalty (e.g. the aigrette (jiqa) in his turban), has weight; but on the other hand the representation is not contemporary, and it does not fall within the more rigid conventions of the royal portrait made for court purposes.

7 cf. Martin, F. R., The miniature painting and painters of Persia, India and Turkey, London, 1912, II, plate 135. My attention was called to this miniature by my former student Dr. Asma Serajuddin.Google Scholar

8 cf. Ray, Sukumar, Humayun in Persia, Calcutta, Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1948.Google Scholar

9 Ray, Sukmar, op. cit., 26.Google Scholar

10 Reproduced by Sir Sykes, Percy, History of Persia, ed., London, 1921, II, facing p. 164Google Scholar. It is also shown in Ray, Sukumar, op. cit. facing p. 39.Google Scholar

11 Against this, however, is the fact the Humāyū is not elsewhere represented as cleanshaven (personal communication from B. W. Robinson). Again the separation in time may be responsible for a lack of precision in detail.

12 Binyon, , Wilkinson, , and Gray, , Persian miniature painting, London, 1933, 110.Google Scholar

13 ‘Some details of the hunting figures (plate II (a,b)) may also be thought curious. The placing of the bow–string upwards in the biw–cases, and the outlines of the latter, are without precedent in Safavid painting, and might be thought to indicate a period when the wearing of the bow had fallen into desuetude’ (personal communication rom B. W. Robinson).

14 Pope, A. U. and Ackerman, Phyllis, ‘Islamic architecture, K. Tīmūrid’, Survey, II pp. 1153–4; J. M. Upton and Phyllis Ackerman, Survey, III, p. 2653 ff.Google Scholar

15 Gratzl, Emil, ‘Book covers’ Survey, III, p. 1985.Google Scholar

16 Similarity between sixteenth–century bindings and miniatures and seventeenth–century doors is not a t all surprising, as t he minor arts always lagged behind miniature painting (personal communication from B. W. Robinson).

17 For other close examples cf. Survey, v, plates 968,971 (a,b), 973,974 (a,b), and 975 (a,b); alsoSarre, Friedrich, Islamic bookbindings, London, 1923, plates XXVI–XXVIIGoogle Scholar; Barret, Douglas, ‘Persian art 9th–19th centuries at the British Museum’, Oriental Art, NS, II, 3, 1949, pp. 139–40Google Scholar. fig. 10; Gardner, K. B., ‘Oriental bookbindings at the British Museum’, Oriental Art, NS, IX, 3, 1963, pp. 139–40Google Scholar. fig. 10; Kühnel, Ernst, Islamische Kleinkunst, Braunschweig, 1963, Abb. 34.Google Scholar

18 Minorsky, (tr.), Calligraphers and painters, Washington, 1959, 186.Google Scholar

19 A list of Persian lacquer–painted doors known to the author is given in an appendix at the end of this article.

20 Eastman, A. C., ‘Palace doors from the throne–room of Shāh Abbās’, Bull. Detroit Institute of Arts, VII, 1962, 49–52.Google Scholar

21 Koechlin, Raymond, ‘Une porte persane’ Bull. des Musées de France, I, 1929, 102–4.Google Scholar

22 M. A. B., , ‘Doors from a Persian palace’ Bull. Rhode Island School of Design, XV, 1927, 27–30.Google Scholar

23 Victoria, Dimand and Museum, Albert, was illustrated in Survey, vi, plate 1474.Google Scholar

24 Kühnel, Ernst, ‘Die Lackstube Schah ‘Abbas I in der islamischen Abteilung der Staatlichen Museen’, Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, LVIII, 1937, 47–58.Google Scholar

25 Eastman, A. C., ‘A Persian lacquered and painted mirror case’, Bull. Detroil Institute of Arts, VII, 1926, 90–2.Google Scholar

26 Bern, Wolfgang, ‘A Persian lacquere–painted canteen’, Ars Islamica, XV–XVI, 1951, 137–9Google Scholar. Just before this article went to press, Mr. Pinder-Wilsen, R. H. called my attention to three lacquered pen–boxes which were made by the famous artist Muhammad Zamān at the beginning of the eighteenth centuryGoogle Scholar. Two of these were published by Ivanov, A., Soobshcheniya Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha (Leningrad), XVIII, 1960, 52–3Google Scholar; and one in Sukhan (Tehran), XI–XII, 1341/1962, 1007.Google Scholar

27 Blochet, E., Les peintures des manuscrils orientaux de la Bibiothèque Nationale, Paris, 1914–20, plate XVIII.Google Scholar

28 Martin, F. R., op. cit., plate 103 (a).Google Scholar

29 Ph.Schulz, Walter, Die persisch–islamische Miniaturmalerei, Leipzig, 1914, plate 80 (b).Google Scholar

30 Robinson, B. W., Persian miniature painting; from collectins in the British Isles, London, 1967, plate 18.Google Scholar

31 Binyon, L., The poems of Nizami, London, 1928, plate XI.Google Scholar

32 Guest, G. D., Shiraz painting in the 16th century, Washington, 1949, plate 8 and 12.Google Scholar

33 Guest, , op. cit., plate 45 (a).Google Scholar

34 Robinson, , op. cit., plate 58, no. 46.Google Scholar

35 Gray, Basil, Persian painting, Lausanne, 1961, 144.Google Scholar

36 The palace of Chihill SutŨn was previously attributed to Shāh ‘Abbās I (996–1038/1288–1629), or more precisely to the time when Isfahān became the capital in 1006/1598;. Cf. Pope, A. U., Survey, II, p. 1192Google Scholar. Some 20 years ago inscriptions were revealed in the palace which gave the date of construction as 1057/1647;, the reign of Shāh ‘Abbās II (1052–77/1642–66). Cf. Honarfar, L., Historical monuments of Isfahan, Iṣfahān, 1964, 96–7Google Scholar; idem, Ganjīna–yi āthār–i tārīkhī–yi Isfahān, 1344/1965, 557–8.

37 M. A. B., , art. cit., 27–30. There are two more pairs of doors which belong to this category: they were in the Kevorkian collection and were included in the catalogue of the Anderson Gallery, 1926 and 1927.Google Scholar

38 Acc. no. 67.634, unpublished.

39 It was on display in an exhibition at the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration: cf. Everett, , Lacquer, Oriental and Western, ancient and modern, New york, 1951, no. 138, p. 9, fig. 4. It was dated to the eighteenth century.Google Scholar

40 Acc. no. 322/a–b, unpublished.

41 Acc. nos. 393/ 393/1–2;, 432/1–2. One of these doors is illustrated in the Museum catalogue, cf. Mathaf bayt al–Karīdaliyya, Cairo, 1962, plates 6 and 9.

42 Acc. no. 16382/1–2, unpublished. It is wrongly attributed to the second half of the sixteenth century.

43 Acc. no. 67.54/1–1933, unpublished. B. W. Robinson on the label suggested that ‘the painting of the figure–group is clearly paralled in a MS of Ḥāfiz, dated 1129/1717, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford’

44 Acc. no.67.54/1–2, published by Diamond, op. cit., fig. 68 pp. 122–3.

45 Acc.nos., 423–1906 and 424—1906. They were illustrated in Survey, VI, plate 1474.

46 B. W. Robinson (personal communication) would prefer to assign these Victoria and Albert Museum doors to style A. The figures, which he agrees were extensively repainted in the Qajar period, appear to him to be ‘ basically authentic and consistent with an early se enteenthcentury date’. The decorative border also suggests to him t he ‘ manuscript illumination of the period of Shah ‘Abbas the G r e a t’ but t he represent tion of t he figures and their garments, and the naturalistic rendering of the chenar tree, ar in the author's opinion in the style of the late seventeenth or even more probably earl eighteenth century.

47 Acc. no. 520/1– unpulblished.

48 Survey, III, p. 2654.

49 A modern door is illustrated in Survey, VI, plates 1434 and 1475.

50 Acc. no. 432/1–unpublished.