Khwaja Abdus Samad
Encyclopedia
'Abd al-Samad or Khwaja Abdus Samad was a 16th century painter of Persian miniature
s who moved to India and became one of the founding masters of the Mughal miniature tradition, and later the holder of a number of senior administrative roles. He is referred to as "of Shiraz
", in modern Iran. Samad's career under the Mughals, from about 1550 to 1595, is relatively well documented, and a number of paintings are attributed to him from this period. From about 1572 he headed the imperial workshop of the Emperor Akbar and "it was under his guidance that Mughal style came to maturity". It has recently been contended by a leading specialist , Barbara Brend, that Samad is the same person as Mirza Ali, a Persian artist whose documented career seems to end at the same time as Abd al-Samad appears working for the Mughal
s.
Oriental 2265, which is dated March 1543. According to Stuart Cary Welch
, there are only three other mentions of him in contemporary records. These say that he was the son of another leading artist of the court workshop, Sultan Muhammed, and so grew up in the milieu of the court atelier, and was a distinguished painter. Kamal of Tabriz is recorded as a pupil of his. The inscriptions in BL Or. 2265 are among the main sources for attributing Persian miniatures of the period. Six painters are named, and although the inscriptions are additions rather than signatures, they have been generally accepted as correct. Mirza Ali's name is inscribed on two miniatures, both courtyard scenes, and his father's on one, to which Welch adds two more un-inscribed miniatures.
Welch further attributes several earlier miniatures to Mirza Ali, including six from Shah Tahmasp's Shahnameh
manuscript of the 1520s; Brend is sympathetic to at least two of these attributions, but finds two unlikely, in terms of agreement with the style of the later works. After considering some other isolated works, with mixed verdicts on his attributions, she firmly parts company with Welch over his attributions to Mirza Ali of six miniatures in another famous manuscript, the Haft Aurang made for Prince Ibrahim Mirza
in 1555-56 (now Freer Gallery of Art
), after he should, if he were indeed also Samad, have left for Afghanistan
and then India. Welch admits that the style of these paintings is different, but attributes this to a change in the spirit of the times, an explanation Brend finds hard to accept, although the attributions are repeated by other scholars writing after Brend's paper; Sheila S. Blair finds they display "the artist’s increasing spirituality and mannerism". After discussing other aspects of the question, and comparing the styles of Mirza Ali and Samad, Brend suggests that they are indeed the same artist, who adopted a soubriquet on moving to a new country. Stylistic similarities include the layout of courtyard compositions and the arrangements of colour, details like a fondness for the virtuosic depiction of grilles and open-work screens, and similar treatment of figures.
of Shah Shuja of Shiraz
, a difficulty with her theory that Brend explains by speculating that this was instead his grandfather, in whose house he was brought up while Sultan Muhammed established his career at court. According to Mughal records, Samad became a master in the court workshop of Shah Tahmasp I of Persia. He was also a calligrapher, something not mentioned in connection with Mirza Ali. No works are generally attributed to him before about 1544-45, although Welch attributes a miniature in the much earlier Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh to him. Brend finds this painting "unsatisfactory" and the work of an inexperienced painter.
Samad first met the exiled Mughal emperor Humayun
in Tabriz
in 1544. In 1546 Humayun asked Tahmasp to release Samad and his fellow Persian Mir Sayyid Ali from his service so that he could engage them, and in about 1549, they arrived at Humayun's temporary capital in Kabul
, where Samad was engaged by Humayun to teach his son Akbar, and possibly the emperor himself, how to draw. With Mir Sayyid Ali and Dust Muhammad, another Persian, Samad "introduced a fully imperial Persian style into the Mughal ateliers", which seem previously to have been small and consisting of artists trained in various centres including Bukhara
. Samad probably worked on the unusually large painting of the Princes of the House of Timur (British Museum
), which Humayun commissioned about 1550-55, in particular on the landscape background. In 1552 a group of single miniatures including work by the two Persians was included in a diplomatic gift to the ruler of Kashgar
, as Humayun worked to assemble support to regain his throne. Some of his works from this period are in a muraqqa
or album in the library of the Golestan Palace
in Tehran
(MSS 1663–4), still showing a thoroughly Safavid style. One of these miniatures depicts Akbar giving a miniature painting
to his father Humayun
, and includes Samad's name on a portfolio; the figure next to it is probably his portrait. The image both uses a fully Persian style, and includes thematic elements, including the self-portrait, that are "dazzling new departures in Islamic painting"
Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali followed the emperor on his return to India, only seven months before he died in 1556. They were retained by the fourteen year old Akbar who within a few years set about greatly expanding his court workshop. A drawing with muted colour, inscribed with Samad's name, in the Bodleian Library
in Oxford
depicts the arrest, three days after Akbar's accession, of Humayun
's troublesome favourite
, Abdu'l Ma'ali, who is seized from behind by a burly courtier. Both artists probably worked on the Tutinama
, the first major commission completed in the new reign, where the disparate styles of the several artists used remain clear. But Mir Sayyid Ali was initially given the supervision of Akbar's huge commission of the 1400 large illustrations for the Hamzanama
, which was to be fourteen years in the making.
In about 1572 Samad replaced Mir Sayyid Ali (who returned to Persia) as head of the imperial workshop, probably because under Sayyid the progress of the illustrations for the Hamzanama
was too slow. At this point the commission was seven years old and only four of the volumes were complete. Under Samad's direction the remaining ten volumes were completed in another seven years. It is uncertain whether Samad painted any of them himself, but "the direction of Mughal painting increasingly came to follow the aims pursued by ‛Abd al-Samad. It is likely that the increased central control that became evident by the Lahore period [1580s on] can be attributed to this artist". Among the mostly Hindu
artists trained by Samad were Daswanth and Basavan, who went on to become famous Mughal painters.
Despite his role in forging the new Mughal synthesis of Persian and Indian styles, Samad's own works remain conservative, with a great interest in detail, and rather less in the new style of dramatic narrative and realism favoured by the young Akbar. But by the 1590s elements of his style, including a taste for detail, were in favour, though after his death Mughal painting turned in the direction of simpler compositions emphasizing human interactions. He did not have the gift for realistic portraiture which Mughal painting introduced to the Islamic miniature, and unlike many Mughal artists, shows few borrowings from the European prints and other art available in Akbar's court.
In 1576, Akbar put Samad in charge of the Fatehpur Sikri
mint
, in 1582 he was made "overseer of commerce" and the next year put in charge of the royal household. In 1584, Akbar made him dewan
(official in charge of finances) of Multan
. He was given a mansab of 400 and honored with the title of Shirin Qalam (sweet pen). The moves may have been in recognition of his talent for administration, but it has been suggested that "Akbar preferred a more robust approach than that of his romanticised Persian style of painting". But he continued to paint and his last known work is a miniature, of Khusraw hunting, in the illustration
s of the 1595 manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208)
. Works with his name inscribed include a drawing of Akbar with a Dervish
(Aga Khan Museum
, c. 1586-87). Another late work is a version of a famous Persian composition of two camels fighting by Behzād
, which an inscription says was done at the request of his son Sharif when he was infirm. He "must have died in the last years of the century".
He had two painter sons, Muhammad Sharif, and one called Bizhad, for the famous Persian artist Behzād
(c. 1450 – c. 1535). Muhammad Sharif was a friend of the next emperor Jahangir
, and like his father was given important administrative roles, a pattern unique among the many Mughal painter families. Not all scholars are convinced these sons were not just one, as while Muhammad Sharif is relatively well documented, Bizhad is apparently only known from inscriptions on miniatures.
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...
s who moved to India and became one of the founding masters of the Mughal miniature tradition, and later the holder of a number of senior administrative roles. He is referred to as "of Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
", in modern Iran. Samad's career under the Mughals, from about 1550 to 1595, is relatively well documented, and a number of paintings are attributed to him from this period. From about 1572 he headed the imperial workshop of the Emperor Akbar and "it was under his guidance that Mughal style came to maturity". It has recently been contended by a leading specialist , Barbara Brend, that Samad is the same person as Mirza Ali, a Persian artist whose documented career seems to end at the same time as Abd al-Samad appears working for the Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
s.
Mirza Ali
Mirza Ali's name first appears in a famous manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, now British LibraryBritish Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
Oriental 2265, which is dated March 1543. According to Stuart Cary Welch
Stuart Cary Welch
Stuart Cary Welch Jr. was an American scholar and curator of Indian and Islamic art.-Life and career:Welch was born to a prominent family in Buffalo, New York. He began collecting drawings by Indian artists as a boy. He earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Harvard University in 1950, then...
, there are only three other mentions of him in contemporary records. These say that he was the son of another leading artist of the court workshop, Sultan Muhammed, and so grew up in the milieu of the court atelier, and was a distinguished painter. Kamal of Tabriz is recorded as a pupil of his. The inscriptions in BL Or. 2265 are among the main sources for attributing Persian miniatures of the period. Six painters are named, and although the inscriptions are additions rather than signatures, they have been generally accepted as correct. Mirza Ali's name is inscribed on two miniatures, both courtyard scenes, and his father's on one, to which Welch adds two more un-inscribed miniatures.
Welch further attributes several earlier miniatures to Mirza Ali, including six from Shah Tahmasp's Shahnameh
Shahnameh
The Shahnameh or Shah-nama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD and is the national epic of Iran and related societies...
manuscript of the 1520s; Brend is sympathetic to at least two of these attributions, but finds two unlikely, in terms of agreement with the style of the later works. After considering some other isolated works, with mixed verdicts on his attributions, she firmly parts company with Welch over his attributions to Mirza Ali of six miniatures in another famous manuscript, the Haft Aurang made for Prince Ibrahim Mirza
Ibrahim Mirza
Prince Ibrahim Mirza, Solṭān Ebrāhīm Mīrzā, in full Abu'l Fat'h Sultan Ibrahim Mirza was a Persian prince of the Safavid dynasty, who was a favourite of his uncle and father-in-law Shah Tahmasp I. He is now mainly remembered as a patron of the arts, especially the Persian miniature...
in 1555-56 (now Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...
), after he should, if he were indeed also Samad, have left for Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and then India. Welch admits that the style of these paintings is different, but attributes this to a change in the spirit of the times, an explanation Brend finds hard to accept, although the attributions are repeated by other scholars writing after Brend's paper; Sheila S. Blair finds they display "the artist’s increasing spirituality and mannerism". After discussing other aspects of the question, and comparing the styles of Mirza Ali and Samad, Brend suggests that they are indeed the same artist, who adopted a soubriquet on moving to a new country. Stylistic similarities include the layout of courtyard compositions and the arrangements of colour, details like a fondness for the virtuosic depiction of grilles and open-work screens, and similar treatment of figures.
Samad
One source says that Samad's father was the vizierVizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
of Shah Shuja of Shiraz
Shah Shuja (Muzaffarid)
Shah Shuja was a 14th-century Muzaffarid ruler of Southern Iran.Shuja was part of the Muzaffarid dynasty and the most powerful ruler of that dynasty. He was the last ruler to hold united sway in his lands, but about 1370 faced having to divide his lands with his sons...
, a difficulty with her theory that Brend explains by speculating that this was instead his grandfather, in whose house he was brought up while Sultan Muhammed established his career at court. According to Mughal records, Samad became a master in the court workshop of Shah Tahmasp I of Persia. He was also a calligrapher, something not mentioned in connection with Mirza Ali. No works are generally attributed to him before about 1544-45, although Welch attributes a miniature in the much earlier Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh to him. Brend finds this painting "unsatisfactory" and the work of an inexperienced painter.
Samad first met the exiled Mughal emperor Humayun
Humayun
Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun was the second Mughal Emperor who ruled present day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of northern India from 1530–1540 and again from 1555–1556. Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early, but with Persian aid, he eventually regained an even larger one...
in Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...
in 1544. In 1546 Humayun asked Tahmasp to release Samad and his fellow Persian Mir Sayyid Ali from his service so that he could engage them, and in about 1549, they arrived at Humayun's temporary capital in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
, where Samad was engaged by Humayun to teach his son Akbar, and possibly the emperor himself, how to draw. With Mir Sayyid Ali and Dust Muhammad, another Persian, Samad "introduced a fully imperial Persian style into the Mughal ateliers", which seem previously to have been small and consisting of artists trained in various centres including Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
. Samad probably worked on the unusually large painting of the Princes of the House of Timur (British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
), which Humayun commissioned about 1550-55, in particular on the landscape background. In 1552 a group of single miniatures including work by the two Persians was included in a diplomatic gift to the ruler of Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
, as Humayun worked to assemble support to regain his throne. Some of his works from this period are in a muraqqa
Muraqqa
A Muraqqa is an album in book form containing Islamic miniature paintings and specimens of Islamic calligraphy, normally from several different sources, and perhaps other matter...
or album in the library of the Golestan Palace
Golestan Palace
Golestān Palace pronounced "Kakheh Golestān" is the former royal Qajar complex in Iran's capital city.The oldest of the historic monuments in Tehran, the Golestan Palace belongs to a group of royal buildings that were once enclosed within the mud-thatched walls of Tehran’s Historic Arg...
in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
(MSS 1663–4), still showing a thoroughly Safavid style. One of these miniatures depicts Akbar giving a miniature painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
to his father Humayun
Humayun
Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun was the second Mughal Emperor who ruled present day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of northern India from 1530–1540 and again from 1555–1556. Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early, but with Persian aid, he eventually regained an even larger one...
, and includes Samad's name on a portfolio; the figure next to it is probably his portrait. The image both uses a fully Persian style, and includes thematic elements, including the self-portrait, that are "dazzling new departures in Islamic painting"
Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali followed the emperor on his return to India, only seven months before he died in 1556. They were retained by the fourteen year old Akbar who within a few years set about greatly expanding his court workshop. A drawing with muted colour, inscribed with Samad's name, in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
depicts the arrest, three days after Akbar's accession, of Humayun
Humayun
Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun was the second Mughal Emperor who ruled present day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of northern India from 1530–1540 and again from 1555–1556. Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early, but with Persian aid, he eventually regained an even larger one...
's troublesome favourite
Favourite
A favourite , or favorite , was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, among other times and places, the term is used of individuals delegated significant political power by a ruler...
, Abdu'l Ma'ali, who is seized from behind by a burly courtier. Both artists probably worked on the Tutinama
Tutinama
Tutinama, literal meaning "Tales of a Parrot", is a 14th-century Persian series of 52 stories. An illustrated version containing 250 miniature paintings was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor, Akbar in the later part of the 16th century...
, the first major commission completed in the new reign, where the disparate styles of the several artists used remain clear. But Mir Sayyid Ali was initially given the supervision of Akbar's huge commission of the 1400 large illustrations for the Hamzanama
Hamzanama
The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza narrates the legendary exploits of Amir Hamza, the uncle of the prophet of Islam, though most of the story is extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts"...
, which was to be fourteen years in the making.
In about 1572 Samad replaced Mir Sayyid Ali (who returned to Persia) as head of the imperial workshop, probably because under Sayyid the progress of the illustrations for the Hamzanama
Hamzanama
The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza narrates the legendary exploits of Amir Hamza, the uncle of the prophet of Islam, though most of the story is extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts"...
was too slow. At this point the commission was seven years old and only four of the volumes were complete. Under Samad's direction the remaining ten volumes were completed in another seven years. It is uncertain whether Samad painted any of them himself, but "the direction of Mughal painting increasingly came to follow the aims pursued by ‛Abd al-Samad. It is likely that the increased central control that became evident by the Lahore period [1580s on] can be attributed to this artist". Among the mostly Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
artists trained by Samad were Daswanth and Basavan, who went on to become famous Mughal painters.
Despite his role in forging the new Mughal synthesis of Persian and Indian styles, Samad's own works remain conservative, with a great interest in detail, and rather less in the new style of dramatic narrative and realism favoured by the young Akbar. But by the 1590s elements of his style, including a taste for detail, were in favour, though after his death Mughal painting turned in the direction of simpler compositions emphasizing human interactions. He did not have the gift for realistic portraiture which Mughal painting introduced to the Islamic miniature, and unlike many Mughal artists, shows few borrowings from the European prints and other art available in Akbar's court.
In 1576, Akbar put Samad in charge of the Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri is a city and a municipal board in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Built near the much older Sikri, the historical city of Fatehabad, as it was first named, was constructed by Mughal emperor Akbar beginning in 1570...
mint
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
, in 1582 he was made "overseer of commerce" and the next year put in charge of the royal household. In 1584, Akbar made him dewan
Dewan
The originally Persian title of dewan has, at various points in Islamic history, designated various differing though similar functions.-Etymology:...
(official in charge of finances) of Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
. He was given a mansab of 400 and honored with the title of Shirin Qalam (sweet pen). The moves may have been in recognition of his talent for administration, but it has been suggested that "Akbar preferred a more robust approach than that of his romanticised Persian style of painting". But he continued to paint and his last known work is a miniature, of Khusraw hunting, in the illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
s of the 1595 manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208)
Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208)
The illuminated manuscript Khamsa of Nizami is a lavishly illustrated manuscript of the Khamsa or "five poems" of Nizami Ganjavi, a 12th century Persian poet, which was created for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the early 1590s by a number of artists and a single scribe working at the Mughal court,...
. Works with his name inscribed include a drawing of Akbar with a Dervish
Dervish
A Dervish or Darvesh is someone treading a Sufi Muslim ascetic path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity, similar to mendicant friars in Christianity or Hindu/Buddhist/Jain sadhus.-Etymology:The Persian word darvīsh is of ancient origin and descends from a Proto-Iranian...
(Aga Khan Museum
Aga Khan Museum
The Aga Khan Museum is dedicated to the preservation of Muslim arts and culture. It is to be situated in Toronto, Canada and is expected to open in 2013. The museum is an initiative of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network...
, c. 1586-87). Another late work is a version of a famous Persian composition of two camels fighting by Behzād
Kamal ud-Din Behzad
Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād , also known as Kamal al-din Bihzad or Kamaleddin Behzad , was a painter of Persian miniatures and head of the royal ateliers in Herat and Tabriz during the late Timurid and early Safavid periods.-Biography:...
, which an inscription says was done at the request of his son Sharif when he was infirm. He "must have died in the last years of the century".
He had two painter sons, Muhammad Sharif, and one called Bizhad, for the famous Persian artist Behzād
Kamal ud-Din Behzad
Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād , also known as Kamal al-din Bihzad or Kamaleddin Behzad , was a painter of Persian miniatures and head of the royal ateliers in Herat and Tabriz during the late Timurid and early Safavid periods.-Biography:...
(c. 1450 – c. 1535). Muhammad Sharif was a friend of the next emperor Jahangir
Jahangir
Jahangir was the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death. The name Jahangir is from Persian جهانگیر,meaning "Conqueror of the World"...
, and like his father was given important administrative roles, a pattern unique among the many Mughal painter families. Not all scholars are convinced these sons were not just one, as while Muhammad Sharif is relatively well documented, Bizhad is apparently only known from inscriptions on miniatures.