"Portrait of Shaikh Mu'in al-Din Hasan Chishti", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

55.121.10.26 verso–Shaykh Hasan Chishti

INSCRIBED (in fine nasta'liq): (at right) "blessed
likeness of Hazrat Shaykh Hasan Chishti
Jahangirshahi"; (at left) "work of the servant
of the palace Bichitr"

ESPECIALLY fine in detail, muted in coloring, and forceful in its characterization, this is the most impressive of the later copies in the Kevorkian Album. Nevertheless, the shaykh's garb is a muddle of form-concealing wrinkles and folds; the cut flowers and vases are prettified; and the arabesques of the carpets are typically nineteenth century in their undisciplined meanders.

Like the other copies in the Kevorkian Album, the technique of this picture differs from that of seventeenth-century works. No longer are colors applied in painstaking, burnished, enamel-like layers. Instead, in imitation of English watercolors, fine strokes of opaque as well as transparent color are brushed on in minute dashes and stippling to lend roundness of form. Far less time-consuming and less prone to flaking off–except in large areas of white, as in the textiles here–the imported method resulted in a less jewel-like color and a matte surface. It also tended to discourage the sharp outlining that lent articulate crispness to traditional miniatures.[1]

Stuart Cary Welch in [Welch et al. 1987]

THE CALLIGRAPHY, of mediocre quality, is written directly on the miniature. The poem is a didactic qasida in which the reader is reminded that "healing and health come after illness, and happy spring after winter" and that everything will be ultimately changed into its contrary, for whatever begins has of necessity an end.

Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]

THE INNER border of this picture is a palmette and flower-head scroll in gold on a rather grayish blue ground; the outer border is made up of flowers and leaves in an arabesque pattern. Both colors and drawing betray its late date.


Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]

Footnotes:

1. This was published in 1955 as a seventeenth-century picture; see Dimand, Maurice S. ''An Exhibition of Islamic and Indian Paintings." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s. 14 (1955), p. 99.

55.121.10.26 recto–A Fantastic Bird

INSCRIBED (in fine nasta'liq): "This bird is called
bu qalamun. Work [kar] of the servant of the
palace Mansur Jahangirshahi''[1]

UNKNOWN TO ornithologists, this bird is a pleasing fantasy and an amiable cornpanion to the holy man on the verso. Bright-eyed and chirping, the bu qalanmun sports every hue in the spectrum, as well as gold. However soft and inarticulate the forms, this artist took pride in his work; when he inscribed this picture to Mansur, he probably did so less to deceive than to render homage to the renowned master.

Stuart Cary Welch in [Welch et al. 1987]

THIS PICTURE is surrounded by a pleasant qit'a. The poet finds in his bath a piece of clay (used for rubbing the body), which is extremely fragrant. Asked the reason for its delightful odor, the clay replies that it has been sitting close to a rose and has become valuable thanks to this precious company.

There are also a fragment of a short mathnavi about the rose and the rose garden and two verses about the "tongue" (that is, the rnanner of speaking), which is the "key to the treasure of the virtuous" and can reveal whether a man is a jeweler or a glassmaker.

The rnediocre calligraphy is contemporary with the picture.


Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]

THE BORDERS around the painting of this pigeon-like bird follow those of the verso, although the inner one is on a pink rather than a grayish-blue ground, while the outer one has flowering plants in the same color scheme as the verso border. The borders are rather better than those of some of the other nineteenth-century copies.

Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]

Footnotes:

1. Annemarie Schimmel has pointed out that the term bu qalamun usually refers to a chameleon, not a bird; it is, however, also used to
describe various colorful items, such as silk.


Portrait of Shaykh Mu'in al-Din Chishti

This portrait of a shaykh belongs to the celebrated Late Shah Jahan Album, compiled under the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century. It depicts Shaykh Mu'in al-Din Chishti (1141–1230), an important personality of the Chishtiyya Sufi order, which was founded in Chisht, a small town near Herat (modern Afghanistan), in 930. Born in Sistan, in southeastern Iran, Mu'in al-Din Chishti traveled to India in 1193 and remained there until his death in 1230. The order spread rapidly throughout India, preaching love, tolerance, and a sense of equality that appealed to people of all classes and religions. The shaykh's tomb in Ajmer continues to be frequented and venerated by pilgrims of diverse faiths, yet the Chishtiyya order never spread beyond the Indian subcontinent.

Shaykh Chishti appears in three-quarters profile, sitting with his legs crossed on a low dais, his identity as a mystic indicated by his long, white beard, simple turban, robes, and rosary. He is identified as "Shaykh Hasan Chishti" along the right border of the border of the painting in Persian nasta'liq script. The decorative frame contains Persian poetry with mystical overtones, containing words of reassurance for a sorrowful reader. The poem advises against losing faith in God, because happiness will always follow sorrow, just as spring follows winter and morning follows night, and that no matter the current state of things, it will inevitably lead to self-annihilation (fana') and come to an end. A soft green border filled with light-colored rosettes provides a transition to the outer border of the album page, which has been painted with scrolling, serrated leaves, and a multitude of colorful flowers enliven the page as if to affirm the optimism contained in the poem's message.

The Late Shah Jahan Album once held more than a hundred folios before the manuscript was unbound, the leaves split, and the album dispersed in the early twentieth century.[70] The folio displayed here is one of a few that were added at a later date., as suggested by the manner of painting, which follows European watercolor techniques more closely than the more time-consuming Mughal one of applying color in enamel-like layers. In spite of the style, however, the name of a known seventeenth-century artist, Bichitr (d. c. 1650), appears as a signature along the left border, perhaps in an attempt to lend authenticity and blend more seamlessly into the seventeenth century album.

Ladan Akbarnia in [Akbarnia and Leoni 2010]

Footnotes:

70. For the album's history, see Lowry, Glenn D. and Milo Cleveland Beach, An Annotated Checklist of the Vever Collection. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Smithsonian Institution; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988, p. 292.

Inscription: 55.121.10.26 recto:
In Persian, in nasta'liq, in upper left: This bird is called buqalamum. Work of the servant of the palace Mansur Jahangir-shahi.

55.121.10.26 verso:
In Persian, in nasta'liq, along the left border: Blessed likeness of Hazrat Shaikh Hasan Chishti Jahangir-shahi.
In Persian, in nasta'liq, along left border: Work of the servant of the palace Bichitr.

Jack S. Rofe, Scotland (in 1929; sale, Sotheby's London,December 12, 1929, no. 115, to Kevorkian); [ Hagop Kevorkian, New York, from 1929]; [ Kevorkian Foundation, New York, until 1955; gift and sale to MMA]

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Emperor's Album: Images of Mughal India," October 21, 1987–February 14, 1988, nos. 91 and 92.

New York. Brooklyn Museum. "Light of the Sufis : an introduction to the mystical arts of Islam," June 5, 2009–September 6, 2009, no. 17.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Light of the Sufis : an introduction to the mystical arts of Islam," May 16, 2010–August 8, 2010, no. 17.

Sotheby's: Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. London: Sotheby's, New York, 1929. no. 115.

Dimand, Maurice S. "An Exhibit of Islamic and Indian Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n. s., vol. 14 (December 1955). p. 99, ill. (b/w).

Welch, Stuart Cary, Annemarie Schimmel, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, and Wheeler M. Thackston. The Emperors' Album: Images of Mughal India. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. nos. 91, 92, pp. 266–69, ill. verso pl. 91 (color); recto pl. 92 (b/w).

Akbarnia, Ladan, and Francesca Leoni. "The Mystical Arts of Islam." In Light of the Sufis. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2010. no. 17, pp. 52–53, ill. p. 53 (color).