Bahram Mirza Album

Double-page spread with Rostam Killing the White Div; by Kamal ud-Din Behzad, late 15th or early 16th century; and fragment of a Chinese-style drawing of a bird, a butterfly, and flowers, late 15th century

The Bahram Mirza Album is the art collection of the Safavid prince Bahram Mirza Safavi, compiled by Dust Mohammad Haravi between 1543 and 1545. Kept in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul since the second half of the 16th-century, it appears to have had a significant influence on Safavid Iran's perception of a unique Persian artistic style. It includes works by various distinguished artists such as Kamal ud-Din Behzad, Ahmad Musa, Abd al-Hayy, Jafar Tabrizi, Sultan Ali Mashhadi, Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, and Anisi. The double-spread introduction of the album, which is typically devoted to court portraits, features an image of Ali, further emphasizing the Safavids' spiritual heritage from him. In the preface, Ali is referred to as the "first Islamic painter". The album also contains numerous Chinese paintings, which is not specifically mentioned in the preamble.

Safavid writers and artists most likely learned about the Chinese art from artworks that had arrived in Iran several decades earlier, as there were very few cross-cultural exchanges of art items between China and Iran during the reign of Shah Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576).

Sources

• Mahdavi, Maleeha; Mayani, Yadullah Gholami (2019). "بهرام میرزای صفوی". The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (in Persian).
• Weis, Friederike (2020). "How the Persian Qalam Caused the Chinese Brush to Break: The Bahram Mirza Album Revisited". Muqarnas Online. 37 (1): 63–109. doi:10.1163/22118993-00371P04. S2CID 230660318.