Safavid woven dreams:carpet workshops achievements

Digital article submitted to the VIII International Conference of the Spanish Society for Iranian Studies. University of Tehran, 4-5 November 2018 Safavid Woven Dreams: carpet workshops achievements ARMEN TOKATLIAN Art Historian, Paris During the Safavid period the royal houses, boyūtāt-e saltanatī, supply the court with all kinds of required items including fabrics and weavings, under the supervision of an appointed superintendent, nāzer-e boyūtat. During Shah Abbas I reign those workshops were further structured. Artisans employed in those royal workshops were organized more like a working force rather than a structured guild, asnāf, they had higher skills and qualification than the self-employed and therefore enjoyed a better social status. In so doing the crown escape from dependence on individual craftsmen and also makes profits. Amongst those craftsmen the brocade weavers, zarbāfān, earned better incomes than others, but all of them were designated as darbasta, meaning "solely tied ", because they worked for the court and seldom privately for their own profit, as the 17th century French Huguenot jeweler and traveler Chardin accounted1. Sometimes the external to the court workshops tawhīl-e asnāf and the state ones, dīvān-i mamālik, were solicited to manufacture carpets and textiles. According again to Chardin those latter were weaved with raw materials provided by the crown, and wages were not paid, instead were given free rent lands to weavers, occasionally the state supervisor of guilds, malek al-tojjār played this role on behalf of the crown. From which royal workshop Safavid carpets originate is an open question. Several Persian as well as European sources designate the districts of Tabriz, Isfahan, Kashan, Kerman, Jowshaqan, Qazvin and Yazd as principals for carpet and textiles manufacture. In the few instances in which a carpet bears the weaver attributive name, nesbāh, such as Kāshānī , Yazdī, Kermānī or Jōshaqānī, except this in itself doesn’t indicate the place where it was made. In the absence of reliable period registers of craftsmen including weavers in Iran, glances at historiography works and dynastic chronicles will provide some hints. At least three textile weavers in the Ottoman court’s ehl-hiref defter 2 are mentioned amongst the craftsmen brought back forcibly to Istanbul by Sultan Selim I after his brief seizure of Tabriz in September 1514. The Venetian traveler Michele Membré who sojourns between 1539 and 1542 at Shah Tahmasp's court in Tabriz mentions that brocades, silk hangings and carpets are displayed at the royal palaces and military campaign tents 3. While in a letter from Mahin Banu, one of Shah Tahmasp sisters, in 1561, to Hurrem Sultana, wife of Sultan Soleyman, she asks to provide the suitable sizes for the carpets Shah Tahmasp planned to include as presents to Ottoman court4. 1 J. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, III vol., Amsterdam, 1711. Topkapi Palace archives n° D 5738. 3 M. Membré, Relazione di Persia (1542), Naples 1969. 4 M. Parsadust, Shāh Tahmāsb-i Awā, Tehran, 1981, pp 234-244. 2 1 Anthony Jenkinson, the English Muscovy Company's commercial agent, reported to London in 1569 that while in Qazvin he could not get any luxury commodities made there , because Shah Tahmasp would buy all such commodities; except cloths and fabrics which were neglected to purchase by this king 5. The Portuguese traveler Pedro Teixeira mentions at the end of 16th century that the finest carpets were from Yazd6; a city where the inhabitants were engaged principally in producing silk and all kind of its derivates. In 1604 a plea letter by Mirza Mohammad Hassan, the vizier of Yazd, was addressed to Shah Abbas for benevolence towards town’s silk weavers. Sefer Muratowicz, an Armenian merchant and supplier of the polish king Sigismund III arrives in 1601 at the court of Shah Abbas , who presented him with a friendship declaration addressed to the Polish monarch. Muratowicz who speaks Persian fluently acquired amongst other items carpets and silk tapestries, kelim, ordered in Kashan, which he brings back in 1602 to Poland7. The Spaniard priest Florencio del Niño mentioned that in Qazvin there was numerous silk carpets in the early 17th century8. In 1602 the royal workshops as well as the atelier-library, ketābkhāna, were removed from Qazvin to Isfahan, the new capital of the kingdom, maqarr-e dawlat, since 1597, counting between 30 and 50 departments, including gold lace makers, gulābatundūzān, weavers, nassājān,9 brocade weaver zarbāfān, and less considered the dyers sabbāghān. Curiously we don’t found 17th century records with specific mention of carpets weavers, qālī-bāf, names in registers, except in a few Armenian’s tombstones in Isfahan, this profession is engraved as being the deceased 10 . Paul Simon who visited in 1608 Kashan, describes it as a city where carpets made on looms owned by the crown were numerous11. It is also attested by other authors that the inhabitants of the villages surrounding Kashan and small towns along the caravan route between Yazd and Mashhad were similarly engaged in the making of carpets and textiles, especially of expensive fabrics such as brocade and cut velvets. Carpet making as well as raw silk production are recorded by East India Company agents in 1616 as the main activity in Yazd region. Jowshaqan produced a bulk of carpets for the court of Shah Abbas and was among the towns mentioned by Abu-l Fazl Allami in the Ākbarnāma 12. Sending carpets to Mughal India was for a time more reliable and profitable for Persians than exports to Europe. 5 Early voyages and travels to Russia and Persi (eds.) E. D. Morgan & C.H. Coote, London 1886. P. Teixeira, The Travels, Kings of Hormuz and Persia, (tr.) W.F Sinclair, London 1902, p. 252. 7 S. Muratowicz, Relacya Sefera Muratowicz, in Kazimierz Niesiolowski, Otia Domestica, Warsaw, 1743. 8 F.del Niño Jesús, A Persia (1604-9, peripeciasde una embajada pontificia, Pamplona, 1929. 9 Derivates from nasij a Mongol patterned gold cloth, hence in Arabic language designates a weaver. 10 Recorded by Yerevan’s scholars A. Gurginian & A. Haniyan, from New Julfa ‘s cemetery, before 1960. 11 A.U. Pope, Survey of Persian art, London, 1930, p. 2432. 12 Abu-l Fazl, The Akbarnama,(tr.) H. Beveridge, Calcutta, III vol., 1897-1939. 6 2 After the death in 1629 of Shah Abbas, several changes took place in the royal workshops, having repercussions in woven patterns and their quality. The sought-after single large motif fashion makes room to a variegated patterns schema. During Shah Soleyman's reign (1666-1694) the dyes and silk factories were closed and thereafter under new arrangements the Isfahan court was externally provided with wool and dyed silk yarns. Another material concealed with accurate and specific description of crafts, artist and artisans including textile and carpet is the guild literature corpus named shahr āshāb, literally “town boys”, it was coined by poet Hafez (d. 1387) who in this way portrayed beautiful young or young singers whose presence mesmerized villagers. A sample of verse in those poems reads: “My heart is captive to the brocade weaver, in whose hand every thread is a noose. Like a pièce of brocade, I made his shop my abode, and since that time my kilt of course being filled with roses”. 13 This poetry and prose material refers specifically to gilds and craftsmanship practiced in Iran. Sayfi Bukhari (d. 1541) was one of the earliest to indulge on this particular literature. Also the renowned Safavid textile weaver Giyath al-Din Ali-ye Naqshbandi Shirazi (d.1595), who was the leader, muqqadam, of the royal looms in Yazd, wrote this kind of poetry too, with detailing circumstances of the life and technicalities of weavers. All those developments treated with caution doesn’t prevent from the fact that there is no extant carpets known to have been commissioned specifically for the Safavid court, except the multiple niche carpet, sāf, offered by Shah Abbas to the Najaf sanctuary, during his pilgrimage, zīarāt there in 1623, bearing the motto: “Endowed by the dog of the threshold, Abbas” 14. Various Safavid sovereigns employed this same allusive variable motto except in this unusual case is nominal. On a mausoleum veil housed at the treasury of Imam Reza at Mashhad is written it was endowed in 1699 by Shah Soleyman15. While a multiple niche flat-woven zīlū 16 was donated in 1556 by Khanesh Begom, a half-sister of Shah Tahmasp, to Shāh Valī Neʿmatollah dervishes’ residence, khānaqā, in Taft mosque compound and now housed at the Carpet Museum of Iran (n° 976).The Palace of the Dukes of Bragança stores a medallion carpet (n°PD76) with a woven poem mentioning Soleyman twice, an allusion to the biblical king Salomon and nor referring to a Safavid king. Mirza Tahir Vahid, Dīvān-i Rizvān, Central Library of Tehran University, manuscript n°4344. Reproduced in M. Aga-Oglu, Savafid Rugs & Textiles, the collection of the shrine of Imām ‘Alī at al-Najaf, New York, 1941, pl.III, V. The referred “āstān” or threshold is justly the Imam Ali sanctuary. 15 Op.cit, A.U. Pope London, 1930, vol.VI, pl. 1084. 16 N.H. Beattie, A Note on Zilu, in C. Cootner, The Jenkins Collection I: Flat-Woven Textiles, Washington, 1981, pp. 169-74; also a Timurid zīlū is housed at the State Hermitage Museum ( IR-2253) . 13 14 3 The word pādishā or sovereign written in a circa 1600 silk kelim from a pair, kept in Berlin Museum für Islamische Kunst (n°12577) is too all-embracing to be attached to a particular king. The expanded praise of Safavid sovereigns to invoke allegiance to their faith by means of pilgrimage, zīarāt, and charitable endowments, āwaqf, to Shia holy shrines atabāt-e ‘alīyāt, including carpets and textiles entertained a power issue17, magnified by ambassadorial gifts to European and the Islamic world sovereigns. Shah Tahmasp offered carpets to Prince Bayazid, the fugitive son of Sultan Soleyman18, whilst Shah Abbas endowed āwqaf, carpets to Imam Reza shrine and to Ardebil threshold in the same year of 1608 while the Najaf sanctuary endowment took place in 162319. Whereas in ottoman sources Safavid ambassadorial gifts implying carpets are recorded during the reception, in 1567, by Sultan Selim II of the Safavid ambassador, Shah Quli khan, depicted in Nūzhet al-Akhbār des sefer-i Sigetvar by Ahmed Feridun Pasha20 and also in Shānname-i Selim Khān by Seyyid Lokman21. The latter also described Toqmaq Khan embassy arrival in 1574 after the ascension of Sultan Murad III in his works Züb-detu’tevārīkh and Shāh-inshāh nāma22 as well as Ibrahim Khan embassy on the occasion of circumcision ceremony of prince Mehmet in another copy of Shāh-en Shāhnāma23. Not forgetting the Kitāb-i Ganjina-i Fath-i Ganja by Ibrahim Çavush coverage of Safavid peace delegation headed by Mehdi Quli Khan and Prince Haydar Mirza sent in 1590 as hostage for peace by Shah Abbas24. Depictions of those diplomatic receptions showing pageants carrying what seem to be carpets are illustrated in some of those above manuscripts. It worth to be mentioned the early interest in carpets by Europeans, as witnessed by several Persian valuable carpets recorded in European inventories, for example in 1549 and 1553 with Cosimo I of Florence or in 1557 with Queen Catherina of Portugal, those carpets were either purchased or obtained as diplomatic presents. The chronology of all those different carpets remains speculative due to the scarcity of carpets including dates; only five are recorded bearing the dates of 1523, 1529 1540 twice and 1671. Another datable carpet is the so called “Coronation carpet” housed at Rosenborg Castle in Denmark (inv.31 rulle 1). 17 M. Mostowfi Yazdi, Moqtasar-e mofid,(ed.) Najmahandi, Tehran, (n.d.). F.Ahmed, Münşeatül- i Selalatin, Istanbul, II Vol., 1858 19 Eskandar Beg Monshi’s Tārīkh ālām-ārā-ye ‘abassī, 1629.With description of those endowments in detail. 20 Topkapi Palace Library manuscript H 1339 f° 247 v. See also Hasan Rumlu Ahasan al-Tawarīkh , (ed.) Navai, Tehran, 1978, p. 567 21 Topkapi Palace Library manuscript A 3595 f° 53v-54r. 22 Respectively Turk and Islamic Arts Museum 1973 f°91V and Istanbul University Library F 1404 f°41v-42r See also a description of this embassy in Ahmed-i Qumi Khūlāsat al-tawarīkh , (ed.) Ishraq, Tehran, 1980, vol. II; p. 893. 23 Topkapi Palace Library B 200 f° 36v-37r. 24 Topkapi Palace Library manuscript R 1296 f° 46r-53r. See also a miniature from Mahmoud Baqi’s Dīvān showing the arrival of this embassy, kept at the Metropolitan Museum N.Y. (accession 45.174.5). 18 4 This Isfahan silk with brocaded silver threads carpet comes from a Dutch ship previously laden in Iran and after a failed British piracy attempt at the port of Bergen in 1665, where the ship was forced to seek shelter, during the Anglo-Dutch war, was later given as a token of gratitude to Queen Sophia Amalie in 1666 by the Dutch East India Company. The current trend of those carpets in the wider background of fine arts under the Safavids was sustained by resourceful iconic spectrum. In practice designers, naqshekhvān, to weaving a carpet are crucial and paramount, judging by the created critical mass of sophisticated patterns. Probably the artists at the royal ketābkhāna producing patterned bindings, sahhāfī, were entwined with carpet design models, naqshah, except behind each carpet we find a master weaver ostād, acting on its own. Most of those Safavid carpets were woven, with an outstanding quality of materials and dyes, displaying complex compositions with combined sophisticate patterns and since the Safavid period onwards emerge a prominent presence of inscriptions on textiles and carpets with Persian poetry, quranic excerpt or Shia eulogy. A noticeable carpets group of epigraphic significance is the niche prayer rugs with arch-shape compositions25. The inscriptions on those carpets implement Shia eulogy and selected Quran verses sometimes identical to mosque’s mehrāb, as come into view at congregational mosque in Yazd, Goharshad mosque in Herat or the Masjid-i Jāme in Isfahan. A fine example due to his archetypal Shia epigraphy is the prayer niche carpet with overall akin nasta ‘liq script (ill.1). Once beyond the embedded visual impact, the reading of those inscriptions conveys toward ruling dynasty creed devotion, witnessed by the inscriptions inside the spandrel with the nād-i Alī-ye saghīr or call upon Ali, in the outer border with the chahārdah ma’ sūm or fourteen immaculate, and in top left corner of the main border with “Face the judge who supplies all needs”. This latter is usually seen in metallic strap work banner’s crests in Shiite rituals. The main border is filled with a ğazāl poem of Hafez alluring infatuation toward mehrāb and qibla that goes along with a quatrain sited vertically in the niche sides within cusped cartouches, calling for God’s grace grant and Prophet Mohammad intercede. At the end of the outer border is written “the work of Qutb [al-D]in Kermani”, while the inscriptions within the roundel at the top of the niche and vertical cartouche reads “Glory to my most high Lord and to his praise”. 25 The Salting Carpets , (eds.) M. Eiland & R. Pinner, Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies Volume 5, Part 2 , Danville, 1999. An exhaustive study of most of those inscribed niche prayer carpets. 5 1. Inscribed prayer rug, wool pile on a cotton foundation, Iranian-Azerbaijan, 17th century, 145 x 100 cm. Brooklyn Art Museum (N° 32-550) Another niche prayer carpet26 with predominant quranic verses (ill.2) displays a sophisticated garden setting pattern with the following inscriptions in fine vocalized thuluth and nasta liq scripts: in outer border Quran. II, 285-86, in inner border Quran, VII, 204-6, in the main border Quran, II, 255-56 with a pair of squares and pair of rosettes in banāi script reads respectively: “The Prophet, peace be upon him said: Revered the command of Allah and compassion upon the creatures of Allah, Glory and praise to Allah, there is no other God than Allah, and Allah is most Great”. 26 Idem supra. Catalogue n° 47. Sold lately at auction, catalogue Sotheby’s, London, October 6, 2010, lot 394. 6 In the arch casing is written Quran XVII. 78, IV.103 and LXVIII. 51-52, while the cartouche in the niche is inscribed with the takbir call “Allah is most Great, the Greatest” , while the spandrel is made of patched pieces27 within Quran.LIX, 23-24 and theonyms or al-Asma al-Husna 28. A distinctive feature of this rug is the presence of an added hand written poem on both ends flat weaved strips, quite illegible. Conspicuously the ultimately employ of those niche pattern rugs departs from the daily canonical prayers to become a praised and instrumental visual metaphor, embodied through selected epigraphy combined with explicit patterns. 2. Inscribed prayer rug, wool and metal thread pile on a silk foundation, Kashan, ca. 1570, 180 x 112 cm. Formerly in a Swiss collection. © 2018 photo courtesy of Sotheby’s. 27 28 Recalling the mosaic-tiles decoration of Harun-e Velayat’s mehrāb . Walid b. Muslim al-Dimashqi (d. 810) was one of the first to provide a compilation of God’s names and attributes, sifāt, commonly named Asma-Allah . 7 Deeply entrenched in Persian carpets is the garden, bāğ, representation, which has ancient roots. By way of example when the Arabs conquerors entered in Tīsfūn or Ctesiphon,the Sasanian capital, they found a monumental flat weave in the royal palace, bearing a garden pattern with water channels and fauna, made of silk, silver- gold threads and bejeweled, which they cut up and shared among them. This flat-weave is still referred as Bahār-e Kasrā or The Spring of Khosrow in hagiographical literature such as Khwandamir’s Habīb al-Syar. Safavid carpets display a wide range of decorative significant elements of Persian art. Amongst them the most successful one is the shining central lobed medallion, naqsh-e toranj, laid down in a field showing a paradisiacal garden, conceivably a reminiscence of pairidaēza, the Avestan walled garden, containing various flora and fauna, the whole symptomatic of the downhill of universe on earth. One representative sample of this sumptuous iconography is the epitome carpet reportedly displayed in 1902 at Westminster Abbey during King Edward VII coronation29. This luxurious large carpet made most likely during the early rule of Shah Tahmasp (ill.3), offer us an excellent standpoint of the high quality of design, color and execution of imperial carpets. On a creamy field decorated with a fourfold symmetry landscape of cypresses, blossoming trees and shrubs enlivened with animals is sited a bold red ground central lobed medallion filled with ducks and cranes flying amid undulating clouds bands with parī, fairy or nymph, holding flasks in attendance at four corners. The cerulean ground border has a most stately pattern of floral scrolls bearing palmettes and lotus blossoms. The refined shapes with shining colors of lions, gazelles, goats, bulls, fabulous deer-like mythical creature, qilīn, and dragons provides an interface with the extant decorative panorama adorning other Persian work of art . A companion carpet from the same loom but actually damaged is housed at Berlin Museum of Islamic Art (n° I.1). 29 L. Komaroff, The Coronation carpet, in Hali magazine, issue 162, 2009, pp. 46-49. 8 3. Royal carpet, wool pile on a cotton and wool foundation, Northwest Iran, ca. 1530, 816 x 570 cm. Los Angeles County Museum, gift of J.P. Getty (48.9) Finally we include an undersized silk piece, with a damaged woven date, read by some 933 H/1529, except we consider it as from Timurid period. The pattern composition mingles calligraphy and figurative elements, suggesting the mythical theme of the talking-tree, derakht-i gūyā. This latter is Referred in the Shāhnāma and also in the Wonders of Creation of Qazvini as wāq-wāq tree, with four impressive angels at corners and a ğazal inscribed in central oblong and corner spandrels with red cursive script. 9 The first hemistich reads: “O thou the leader of all communities, who guides all those in quest of wisdom” and open the path for a spiritual dimension of leadership, while the fabulous creatures heads among coiling floral stems must be seen as echoing this ğazal. In all probability this rug was woven for a sanctuary, as suggested by one of his owners in Tehran, the scholar A.U. Pope, who acknowledged that it comes from Mashhad shrine before 1939. 4. Carpet, silk pile on a silk foundation, Tabriz, dated in the month of Ramadan 933 (?), 236 x 93 cm Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, (inv.T 113). Safavid carpets production, partially inherited from Turkmen-Timurid looms, produced either in royal, state or private workshops at different locations, with selected wool, cotton, silk and metallic threads, designed and woven by masters, sometimes under the crown patronage, khāssa-ye sharīfa, was transformed into a flourishing traditional art form and a source of income for next generations. In the past several art historians concerned with oriental carpets provide us with multifarious contentions based mainly on design and customary aesthetic grounds. A modern approach about carpets knowledge consist to focus into structural analyze, close comparative examination and taking in account the historical framework. Conceivably the result might be more reliable to associate a particular carpet with a production center and to determinate what facts are beyond hypothesis. Arguable this method to study carpets will perceptibly open the door for further discoveries. In the meantime we are able admire the Safavid carpets housed in public collections around the world as prized visual metaphors. 10