Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs

376 Pages·2016·284.333 MB·English

by  Sheila R. Canby, Deniz Beyazit, Martina Rugiadi, A. C. S. Peacock

COURT AND COSMOS

COURT AND COSMOS
The Great Age of the Seljuqs
Sheila R. Canby, Deniz Beyazit, Martina Rugiadi,
and A. C. 5. Peacock
\i\lith contributions by Alzahraa K. Ahmed, i\laryam Ekhtiar,
~\ich,,el f alcetano, Abdull,,h Ghouchani, Pinar Gokpinar Gnepp,
,,n<l RenMa l lolod
TIE
NEr
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Di"tributed LJY "le l niversity L'ress, l\.ew 1c\V(:Il and London
This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition "Court and
Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," on view at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, from April 27 through July 24, 2016.
The exhibition is made possible by the NoRuz at the Met Fund.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
the Doris Duke Fund for Publications, and the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf
Foundation.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Mark Polizzotti, Publisher and Editor in Chief
Gwen Roginsky, Associate Publisher and General Manager of Publications
Peter Antony, Chief Production Manager
Michael Sittenfeld, Senior Managing Editor
Edited by Marcie M. Muscat, with the assistance of Harriet Whelchel
Production by Lauren Knighton, with the assistance of Paul Booth
Designed by Steven Schoenfelder
Image acquisitions and permissions by Josephine Rodriguez-Massop
Bibliography edited by Penny Jones
Map by Anandaroop Roy
Photographs of works in the Metropolitan Museum's collection are by
The Photograph Studio, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; new photography
is by Anna-Marie Kellen unless otherwise noted. Additional photography
credits appear on p. 365.
Typeset in Adobe Arabic, ArmenianLS, Catull BQ, Damascus, and Formata
Printed on Satimat 135 gsm
Separations by Professional Graphics, Inc., Rockford, Illinois
Printed and bound by Verona Libri, Verona, Italy
Jacket illustrations: (front) Box with fragmentary combination lock, early to
mid-13th century (detail of cat. 168c); (back) Bowl with courtly and astro
logical motifs, late 12th-early 13th century (detail of cat. 123). Additional
illustrations: p. ii: Pierced jug with harpies and sphinxes, 1215-16 (detcil
of cat. 143); pp. 36-37: Head from a figure with beaded headdress, l 2th
early 13th century (detail of cat. 1e ); p. 38: Magic mirror of Abu-1-Fadl Artuq
Shah, ea. 1220s-30s (detail of cat. 7); p. 72: Tray stand, mid-to late 13th
century (detail of cat. 69); p. 166: Astrolabe, 1102-3 (detail of cat. 114);
p. 198: Basin with signs of the zodiac, ea. 1240-1300 (detail of cat. 125);
p. 250: Mosaic-tile panel with inscription, 1251-53 (detail of cat. 167b);
p. 290: Tombstone of the Lady Jalila, 12th century (detail of cat. 197)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art endeavors to respect copyright in a
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contact the Editorial Department.
Copyright© 2016 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
First printing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans
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without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-58839-589-4
Contents
vi Director's Foreword
viii Acknowledgments
xii Lenders to the Exhibition
xiii Preface
xiv Note to the Reader
lNTRODUCTION
2 The Great Age of the Seljuqs
A. C 5. Peacock
CATALOGUE
38 Sultans of the East and the West
72 The Courtly Cycle
166 Science, Medicine, and Technology
198 Astrology, Ma.gic, and the World of Beasts
250 Religion and the Literary Life
290 The Funerary Arts
309 Notes
336 Bibliography
355 Glossary
357 Index
365 Photography Credits
Director's Foreword
he rise and fall of great empires has indelibly shaped the history of the
lands stretching from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean. While
the conquests of Cyrus and Alexander are well known to students of
ancient history, those of the medieval Seljuqs have received less attention.
Nonetheless, in the 1030s-two centuries before the Mongols began their
westward march across Asia, and three centuries before Tamerlane followed suit in !ran,
eastern Anatolia, and northern India-the Seljuqs, a Turkish tribal group from Central
Asia, moved into !ran and northern Iraq. Their heirs would add Anatolia and parts of
northern Syria to the realm, establishing several successor states that competed for control
over the area known in ancient times as Northern Mesopotamia and today as the Jazira.
"Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs" is the first major exhibition to
focus on the full breadth of Seljuq art produced in Iran, Anatolia, northern Iraq, and
northern Syria. When the Seljuqs arrived in Iran, they encountered a local population
that already had a long tradition of artistic production, in various media. However, inno
vations in materials such as ceramics and the introduction of paper combined with new
forms of imagery to create a range of highly decorative utilitarian objects, acquired by a
new elite that prospered under Seljuq rule. In Anatolia, encountering a society that after
centuries of Byzantine domination was mostly Christian, the Seljuqs built palaces,
mosques, hospitals, schools, and fortresses that marked their appropriation of the land
and the forms associated with their religion, Islam. Whereas the Seljuq art of !ran is
rarely inscribed with the names of rulers, in Anatolia and the Jazira numerous luxury
objects bear dynastic inscriptions, another mark of Seljuq domination over subjects who
would have spoken Greek or Syriac and practiced Christianity. Even when they held
power precariously, the Seljuqs spared little expense in producing impressive illustrated
manuscripts and brasses inlaid with silver and gold, all in glorification of their dominion.
The six themes of the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue reflect the preoc
cupations of the Seljuqs, their successor states, and the people over whom they ruled.
Alongside imagery that was shared across the vast Seljuq territories were local preferences
that resulted in distinct stylistic differences between Iranian, Anatolian, and Jaziran pro
ductions. The works suggest zest for life as well as religious faith, but some also hint at
the sectarian divisions that marked the region in the eleventh through thirteenth century.
Indeed, the decoration of many Seljuq objects reveals an underlying desire for an orderly
life and protection from instability and uncontrollable events. By comparison to the
hugely disruptive campaigns of the Mongols and Timurids, the Seljuq conquest built
on the existing cultural matrix and led to one of the most highly inventive periods of
medieval art in western Asia.
VI
An exhibition of this complexity necessarily relies on the generosity of lenders.
The more than fifty private collectors and institutions from across the globe that lent
works of art are enumerated, with our thanks, in the accompanying list of Lenders to
the Exhibition. Those whose loans were especially significant in number include Sheikh
Nasser and Sheikha Hussah al-Sabah; the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha; the Musee du
Louvre, Paris; the David Collection, Copenhagen; the Museum fur Islamische Kunst,
Berlin; the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London; the Keir Collection,
on long-term loan by Ranros Universal S.A. to the Dallas Museum of Art; and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition includes several objects that h,:We
never before been seen in the United States, among them the earliest copy of the
Shahnama, the Persian national epic, from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze;
and a group of thirteen works from museums in Turkmenistan. We are grateful to the
United States embassy in Turkmenistan for its efforts on our behalf.
The exhibition is made possible by the oRuz at the Met Fund. We are extremely
grateful to Museum trustee Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani and his wife, Sharmin, for their
steadfast leadership of the NoRuz at the Met Benefit and for their enthusiastic support of
this exhibition. Indeed, the realization of this project is a testament to their and the
NoRuz at the Met Committee's unwavering dedication to the Museum. In addition, we
extend our thanks to the American Institute of Iranian Studies for its thoughtful generos
ity in the early planning stages of this project; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the
Doris Duke Fund for Publications, and the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Foundation for
their commitment to this catalogue; the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute and the
Soudavar Memorial Foundation for their contributions to the symposium held in con
junction with the show; and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art for its support of
the exhibition's educational programs. At the Metropolitan Museum, I thank Sheila R.
Canby, Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge, and Assistant Curators Deniz Beyazit and
Martina Rugiadi, all in the Department of Islamic Art, for preparing both the exhibition
and the publication. Their efforts shed new light on one of the great cultural and artistic
legacies of the medieval Islamic world, at a time when that legacy is in peril and its pres
ervation has never been more critical.
Thomas P. Campbell
Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
DIRECTOR'S FOREWORD VII
Acknow ledgmen ts
Like all large exhibitions, "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs" has taken
a number of years to evolve from a wish list to a reality. This actualization is the sum of
many parts-individual and institutional lenders, book and exhibition designers, photogra
phers and editors, scholars in North America, Europe, the i\l\iddle East, and Central Asia,
and colleagues at The Metropolitan Museum of A.rt, both within the Department of
Islamic Art and across the Museum. We are enormously grateful to all the people who
have been so generous with their time, information, and expertise, and for the abiding
support of our Director, Thomas P. Campbell. We also owe a great debt of gratitude to
the NoRuz at the Met Fund, which is the exclusive supporter of the exhibition, and
to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Fund for Publications, and the
Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Foundation for their commitment to this catalogue.
In North America we would like to thank Henry Kim and Filiz c;aktr Phillip at the
Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; Ute Wartenberg Kagan, Elena Stolyarik, Michael L. Bates,
and Peter Donovan at the American Numismatic Society, New York; Caitlin McKenna
at the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Karol B. Wight at the Corning Museum of Glass,
N.Y.; Sabiha Al Khemir and Tricia Dixon at the Dallas Museum of Art; Roy Davis and
Cecily Langdale, New York; Dr. Rina and Dr. Norman Indictor, New York; Gudrun Buhl,
Elizabeth Williams, and Marta Zlotnick at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collec
tion, Washington, D.C.; Linda Komaroff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art;
Laura Weinstein at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Dilys Blum, Sara Reiter, Kristina
Haugland, Felice Fischer, Hiromi Kinoshita, Melissa Meighan, and Darielle Mason of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art; Karin Ruehrdanz, Lisa Golombek, and Robert Mason of
the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Sarah Berman and Lauren Barach at the Seattle Art
Museum; David McKnight and Abby Lang of the University of Pennsylvania's Kisiak Cen
ter for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, Philadelphia; Renata Holod and
Anne Brancati at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropol
ogy, Philadelphia; Amy Landau at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; and David Sensa
baugh and Lynne Addison at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
In Europe we extend our thanks to Mina Moraitou at the Benaki Museum, Athens;
David Lordkipanidze and Irina Koshoridze of the Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi;
Francesca Leoni at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford; Alasdair
Watson and Bruce Barker-Benfield of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; Venetia
Porter, Ladan Akbarnia, and Jonathan Tubb of the British Museum, London; Victoria
Avery at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with Helen Loveday in London;
VIII
Tim Stanley, Miriam Rosser Owen, Moya Carey, and Victor Borges of the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London; Nasser David Khalili and Nahla Nasser of the Nasser D.
Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London; Ina Sandmann of the Sarikhani Collection,
Oxfordshire; Elaine Wright of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; Richard and Glen
de Unger of the Keir Collection; Cesare Pesini at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
Vatican City; Stefano Casciu and Davide Gasparotto, both formerly at the Galleria
Es tense, Modena; Massimo Medica and Mark Gregory D' Apuzzo at the Museo Civico
Medievale, Bologna; Luca Bellingeri of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, as
well as his former colleagues Maria Letizia Sebastiani and Mario Vitalone; Paolo Galluzzi
and Giorgio Strano of the Museo Galileo-lstituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Flor
ence; Gabriella Di Flumeri at the Museo azionale d' Arte Orientale "Giuseppe Tucci,"
Rome; Andreina Draghi at the Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome; Kjeld
von folsach and Mette Korsholm of the David Collection, Copenhagen; Rifat Sheikh
al-Ard, Bashir Mohamed, and Debra Noel Adams of the Furusiyya Art Foundation;
Maximilien Durand at the Musee des Tissus et Musee des Arts Decoratifs de Lyon;
Eric Delpont of the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Yannick Lintz, Gwenaelle Fellinger,
Charlotte Maury, Annabelle Collinet, Carine }urine, Helene Bendejacq, and Delphine
Miroudot at the Musee du Louvre, Paris; Annie Vernay-Nouri of the Bibliotheque
ationale de France, Paris; Annette Kramer, Bekhruz Kurbanov, and Ines de Castro of
the Linden-Museum Stuttgart; Jurgen Wasim Frembgen at the Museum Funf Konti
nente, Munich; Stefan Weber, Julia Gonnella, and Gisela Helmecke at the Museum fur
Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Christine Waidenschlager of the Kunst
gewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Christoph Rauch of the Staatsbibliothek
zu Berlin; Stefan Heidemann, formerly of the Orientalisches Munzkabinett, Universitat
Jena; and Wolfgang Meighorner of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum,
Innsbruck.
In the Middle East and Central Asia we are grateful to Sheikh asser al-Sabah,
Sheikha Hussah al-Sabah, Salam Kaoukji, Deborah Freeman, Katie Marsh, and Sophie
Budden (formerly) of the al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-lslamiyya, Kuwait; Leslee
Michelsen, formerly of the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha; the Ministry of Culture of
Turkmenistan and participating museums: the Museum of History and Local Lore
of Mary Province, the Museum of Kone-Urgench State Cultural and Historical Park,
and the State Museum of the State Cultural Center of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat; and
Maya Meredova, Maren Payne-Holmes, and Nargizid Metyakubova at the United States
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
embassy in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, together with their former colleague Michael L.
Cavey. We especially appreciate the many efforts made by Ms. Meredova on behalf of
the Metropolitan Museum for this historic and unprecedented loan from Turkmeni
stan's museums.
The catalogue benefited immeasurably from the contributions of guest authors
A. C. 5. Peacock, Renata Holod, and Pinar Gokpinar-Gnepp. Marcie Muscat steered the
book through the editorial process with as little pain inflicted on the authors aS possible,
a testament to her great skill, while Lauren Knighton oversaw its production with care
and patience. Josephine Rodriguez-Massop and Jane 5. Tai worked assiduously to acquire
the images in the catalogue, while Anna-Marie Kellen in The Photograph Studio worked
against the clock to provide photographs of objects in the Museum's collection. Steven
Schoenfelder designed the book, and Penny Jones refined the notes and bibliography.
Mark Polizzotti, Gwen Roginsky, Peter Antony, and Michael Sittenfeld all contributed to
the catalogue's successful production.
Christopher oey and Paul Caro produced several films for the exhibition, evoking
the context in which Seljuq art was made. Sree Sreenivasan and his team in the Digital
Department have ensured the dissemination of information about the exhibition on the
Museum's website. Likewise, Staci Hou and Nina Diamond are responsible for the audio
guide. Katherina Weistroffer has enhanced the interpretation of these works with her
elegant exhibition design, aided by graphic designer Mortimer Lebigre and advised by
Michael Langley. At the Met we are further grateful to Linda Sylling and Patricia Gilkison
for keeping an eagle eye on the budget, as well as to Aileen Chuk for tackling the most
complicated loans with aplomb. Jennifer Russell and Martha Deese have remained simi
larly positive and supportive throughout. Jean-Franc;:ois de Laperouse, Vicki Parry, Mark
Wypyski, Fiorica Zaharia, Janina Poskrobko, and Yana van Dyke have stabilized
and restored many of the objects from the Met on view in this exhibition, while Federico
Caro, Elena Basso, and Parviz Holakooei contributed their considerable scientific expertise.
Our colleagues in the Department of Islamic Art, Curator Navina Najat Haidar and
Associate Curator Maryam Ekhtiar, have shown remarkable patience as we have focused
on the art of the Seljuqs to the exclusion of other periods and schools of Islamic art.
Abdullah Ghouchani and Hagop Kevorkian Curatorial Fellow Alzahraa K. Ahmed
have read many difficult inscriptions on the objects in the show, lending insight into
their significance in the Seljuq period. Maryam Ekhtiar provided elegant translations
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS