- Provenance
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To 1946
Jacob Acheroff, Paris, France. [1]From 1946
Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Jacob Acheroff, Paris. [2]Notes:
[1] Curatorial Remark 1 in the object record.
[2] See note 1.
- Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)
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Jacob Acheroff
- Label
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The right half of a double- page frontispiece, this remarkable painting depicts Ulugh Beg (1393-1449), a grandson of Timur (Tamerlane), the founder of the powerful Timurid dyansty of Iran and central Asia (1370-1506). An accomplished bibliophile, historian, mathematician, and above all, an astronomer, Ulugh Beg built a celebrated observatory in Samarqand. In this painting, he is shown in a ceremonial courtly setting, which often was held in the open air. While the composition conforms to the norms of Timurid pictorial style, with its emphasis on idealized figural types, two-dimensional spaces, and finely painted surfaces, the bold, saturated colors are unusal and may be a particular feature of fifteenth-century painting from Samarqand.
- Published References
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- Jeremy Tredinnick. An Illustrated History of Kazakhstan. .
- I.N. Khan Arshi. Black Taj Mahal: The Emperor's Missing Tomb. New Delhi. .
- Abu'l-Husayn Abdu'r-Rahman As-Sufi. Suwaru'l-Kawakib. Hyderabad, India. front.
- Julia Bailey. Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700: Proceedings of the Conference held at the Ashmolean Museum on 30-31 August 2003. Oxford and Genoa. p. 18, fig. 1.
- Art et Société dans le Monde Iranien. Bibliotheque Iranienne, no. 26 Paris. pp. 41-42, fig. 19.
- Frederique Beaupertuis-Bressand, Eleanor Sims. Ulug Beg: Le Prince Astronome. Paris. pp. 44-45.
- Smithsonian Institution. Report of the Secretary, 1946-1947. Washington. p. 46, pl. 1.
- B. W. Robinson. Fifteenth-Century Persian Painting: Problems and Issues. Hagop Kevorkian Series on Near Eastern Art and Civilization New York. pp. 49-50, fig. 15.
- Abolala Soudavar, Milo Cleveland Beach. Art of the Persian Courts: Selections from the Art and History Trust Collection. New York. p. 70.
- Thomas W. Lentz, Glenn D. Lowry. Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century. Exh. cat. Los Angeles. p. 90, fig. 33.
- The Book of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, and Pilgrimage, 1250-1700. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions Leiden. p. 140, fig. 3.4.
- B. W. Robinson. Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book. London. p. 150.
- Andrew Topsfield. Ketelaar’s Embassy and the Farangi Theme in the Art of Udaipur. vol. XXX, no. 5. pp. 186-187, fig. 12.
- Barbara Brend. A Carpet and Related Pictures--A Legacy of Timur's Samarqand? vol. 30, no. 2. p. 187, fig. 12.
- B. W. Robinson. Persian Painting and the National Epic. Annual Lecture on Aspects of Art, Henriette Hertz Trust of the British Academy London. cat. 3, p. 290.
- Qajar Iran: Political, Social, and Cultural Change, 1800-1925. Edinburgh. p. 293.
- Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World. Exh. cat. Los Angeles, April 26, 2022. p. 295, fig. 80.
- M.M. Ashrafi. Where was the Portrait of Ulugh Beg Painted. no. 21. p. 24030.
- Collection Area(s)
- Arts of the Islamic World
- Web Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- SI Usage Statement
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Usage Conditions Apply
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
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CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)
This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
Usage Conditions Apply
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
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International Image Interoperability Framework
FS-6899_01