 Yn fy mlynedd ychydig yn ddefnyddio'r cyfnod, Mae'r cyfnod yw'r cyfnod enghraifft ac nesaf yw yma yn ddweud yw'r cyflog yn Nfarae. Mae'r cyflog yn gweithio'r cyflog yn Nfarae ac yn ddweud yna yn y cyflog yn Nfarae. Mae oes i ddweud y gweithio'r cyflog yn y byddai'r cyflog. Mae'n credu ychydig i chi'n gweithio'r cyflog, ac mae'n cael ei ddwynt i chi'n cael ei ddweud i chi'n gweithio'r cyflog. I'd like, first of all, to thank Hsioast very, very much for putting on this series of lectures which accompanied the exhibition curated by Marion Bukhari, and if any of you haven't seen it, I would urge you very much to see it. It's on for another week or so, I believe, Marion. That's correct, isn't it? Yes, indeed, so have a look at the exhibition and this is a series of lectures Mae'r ddweud o'r leisio'r ddeimlo, o'r ddweud o'r ysgrifennu. Mae'n ddweud o'r ffaith fathau arall o'r ddweud o'r ddweud yr eich ddweud. Mae'n ddweud o'r leisio yn ymdweud. Mae'n ddweud o'r leisio panultimad. Mae'n ddweud o'r leisio a'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r aeg a nhw'n eu ddweud. So mae'n hoff i'n ddweud i'n ddweud o'r ddweud. Felly, i bwysig o'r dr Sarkib Barbaru, rwy'n cael ei wneud o'r Sarkib yn yigodd yn i gwaith, rwy'n addysgu'n ddechrau'r Ysbryd, yn ymgylch, i am bwysigol, yn mynd i chi rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n cael Sarkib, mae'n oed i'r Ysbryd, mae'n edrych ei rydw i'r ddiadau, ond yng Nghymru, ac mae'r lleiddi Simon Digbyr Felly wedi'u'r awdurdodau, gyda'r unrhyw gyda Simon's Award, the Charitable Foundation. Now Sarkib is working in the Persian Manuscripts Department at the British Library, so he's still very much within the sort of Bloomsbury circuit. And we will take questions afterwards, so I'm now going to hand the floor over to Sarkib and so sit back, enjoy, and be prepared to be stimulated. Thank you, Sarkib. APPLAUSE Thanks, Rosie, for that very generous introduction. I just hope I could do it justice. I'd also like to echo your words by thanking Marion. Marion and I, we had a discussion just a few months before installation, and I was amazed at her ambitious timeline, if I may put it that way, and even more so at her sense of mission, championing the history of women, as taste makers, the patrons, the consumers, the producers of textiles, active at royal courts, and all other registers of society. My own interest in the history, art, and culture of the Timurid Empire and its later reincarnation as the so-called Mogul Empire in Northern India immediately suggested a study of the continuities and divergences in the sartorial textile and decorative cultures of these empires in Iran and Central Asia, as well as in India. Therefore, my starting point for this evening's discussion will be to give a brief overview of the ornamental repertoire in the Timurid period that is widely termed the international Timurid style before settling onto an exploration of the evolutionary trends in ornamental repertoire for the embellishment of textiles and other decorative arts, which, I argue, are evidence for the emergence of yet another reinvigorated form of the international Timurid style. The important point for me is to question whether synergies in ornamental repertoire always cut across the decorative arts to create a unified visual culture embracing the design of manuscripts, textiles, ceramics, architecture, and so on. Or whether it is possible that different modes of ornamental repertoire coexist in parallel but not cancelling each other out. The latter, if it is the latter, where lies the divide between the different modes and is there a policy behind these choices? But first let's talk about the Timurids. The descendants of Amit-e-Mur, known to Europe as Tamilain, are known to have ruled Iran, Syria, Anatolia to the west, and Central Asia and India in the east. They unified the patchwork of autonomous provinces ruled by warlords that once formed part of the Ilhanid Empire that traced its origins to Changi's Khan. Timur married into the last surviving branches of Changi's Khan's dynasty, the Chagatai Khan's, and took on the important title of sun-in-law, or Gorkhan, which lent the new ruler an heir of legitimacy in the eyes of some ethnic Turks, Mongols, and other loyalists. Although Amit-e-Mur Gorkhan was himself peripatetic, that is constantly moving from one place to another wherever his military campaigns would lead, he established his family and locus of power around a cluster of cities in Central Asia, including Samarkand, Tashkand, Aksarai, and others, building major monuments, foundations, and patronising the arts, but in absentia. This has already been discussed by other speakers as part of this series, including Susan Babai. The provinces were governed by Amit-e-Mur's sons, and grandsons, peers of state, and other vassals, some of whom were able to establish centres of excellence in the absence of the, sorry, centres of excellence in the arts by the creation of relatively stable government and patronage. Amit-e-Mur died in 1405, and his empire was consumed by the internal competition between members of his family. Shahrukh Mirza, Amit-e-Mur's eldest son, suppressed his rivals and consolidated the, sorry, not the eldest son, the eldest surviving son, suppressed his rivals and consolidated the empire that diminished in its extent and military potency incrementally over the succession of two generations of rulers, Ulugbeig Mirza, and Baesongkor Mirza, who nevertheless created wealthy courts, vibrantly supporting the sciences, literature, and visual arts. The vassal Ottomans and Indian territories quickly resumed their former independence while Turkman rulers in Western Iran made rival claims for kingship. In spite of political fragmentation, Timurid culture, Timurid cultural hegemony, was all pervasive in the visual arts and showed commonalities in artistic expression and the ornamental repertoire adorning manuscripts, ceramics, textiles, carpets, and the built environment. And while regional styles such as Shiraz, Bardad, and Tabriz championed their own local variants, the perceived unity and prestige of the Timurid courtly style held an appeal beyond the empire's administrative boundaries. Arguably, it is this, the international Timurid style that was the medium cross-fertilising later courtly traditions including the Ottoman, the Safavid, and, for a brief period, the Sultanates of India. So is a representation several centuries later of Amir Teimur in the centre seated here. And these are his descendants either side, Babur sitting here and Humayun. I show this because this is a hint as to the people I'll be talking about later. The continuing deterioration of Timurid territorial integrity meant that within the elaps of a century, the commonwealth of Timurid princes had dwindled to a few surviving outposts in Herat and Samarfad. Under pressure from the Uzbex moving south from Central Asia and the Turkman Safavids expanding from Western Iran, Timurid Herat surrendered in 1507. But the story of the Timurid dynasty does not end here. Conventional histories of the Mughal dynasty ruling much of India, modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh also, have in the past tended to create the impression that the rulers emerged simultaneously at the Battle of Panipat in 1526. Indeed, at a superficial level, the very label Mughal entrenched in European historiography of India the idea of the dynasty's distinct identity without relation to earlier pedigree or ideological claim. The term Mughal, which has now stuck, is nothing but a misnomer and hides the fact that succeeding generations of rulers since the 16th century traced their dynastic origins and legitimacy to rule back to the same Amid-e-Mur-Gurkan. As the last Timurid ruler of Samarkand, it was Babur and his success at the Battle of Panipat that marked the Timurid dynasty's territorial transition from the Asiatic mainland to Peninsular South Asia. If the Timurids and Mughals both share the same genealogical and ideological heritage, how did the transition to India influence the continued expression of the international Timurid style on the one hand and on the other, the sartorial and textile culture of the Timurid court? To answer the first part of the question, let us examine the international Timurid style in a little more detail from its origins. Any analysis of the origins of an ornamental repertoire in early Islamic art, and I use that in quotation marks, Islamic art. I mean, there's nothing particularly Islamic about it. There's nothing theological about it, but it somehow lends to the culture that, the visual culture that developed around Islamic lands. The first major adorned monument, the celebrated Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which is attributed to the Umayyad Caliph Abdul Malik Ibn Marwan, and completed around 687, almost six decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, is an important monument to start off with. Leaving aside the interesting form of the octagonal architecture itself, original portions of gilt and coloured mosaics on both faces of the inner colonnade and outer colonnade encirculing the rock contained the very elements of design that permanently characterise much of the non-figurative vocabulary of Islamic art. Specifically, calligraphy, or khat, geometry, or hands up, and arabesque, or islamie. Whether it be fruiting vines and a canvas in a tight scroll, as we see in this section here, or seemingly winged branches of trees studied with wrought jewels, as we see in this element here. The qualities of symmetry, the balance between positive and negative space, and the abstraction of natural references are key features. Periodic reinterpretations, transforming the motifs of trees and vines into spear-shaped palmets and split palmets emerging from rocks, vases, and stylised collars extended the vocabulary of a vigorously inventive repertoire for several centuries. But with the arrival of the Ilhanids in the mid-13th century, this older arabesque tradition developing from a synthesis of late Sasanian and Byzantine classicism, where it is defined as rumi, which is the Arabic word for Roman, now accommodated newer distinct forms of scrolling arabesque associated with China, or cafe, which is termed khitai. So essentially, my point is that you've got two typologies of scrolling arabesque developing with the changing of power. Familiar to us as the Shinwazeri style, bold and elaborate peonies, lotus heads, multi-lobed foliage, knots, clouds, battle-like brackets, sinuous undulations of line, and gradations of bright colours further added to the familiar language of scrolling vines. The juxtaposition between the rumi and khitai styles of arabesque side by side created playful possibilities for compositions on the decorative page, woven or embroidered textiles, and even tile work, for example. The use of ornament on such embellished artefacts from the Timurid period reflects the settled resolution of earlier coarseness and exuberant tensions that occasionally surfaced in Ilhanid productions. So here's a horoscope for one of the Timurid princes, and this is in the Welcombe Institute. And it shows, I think, some of the points I'm trying to make about the tension between khitai and rumi islimi. So this is islimi, and this is in the rumi style, where we're talking about spearhead shaped split palmets and palmets, and then we talk about more naturalistic, relatively speaking, in an abstract fashion, more naturalistic floral ornament, which you can see in these very narrow bands down here, but compared to the almost linear style of these sections, they have quite a different flavour and injection of energy. I've got one more slide, which I've put in the wrong order, and this is from a British Library manuscript for the same prince. Here we have, again, the khitai form of ornament, and here we have the rumi ornament. The trouble is that a lot of these terms are lost in the descriptive literature of illuminated manuscripts, so it doesn't always come through. But anyway, this is the kind of terminology that I've encountered in descriptive works from the period. The circulation of the product of Timrid court design was stimulated internally by regular ceremonials based on the exchange of gifts. External trade and diplomatic exchanges are also important means for exerting the linkage between soft power, design and artefact. Following the dissolution of the Timrid Empire in Iran and Central Asia, the Safavids and Uzbex benefited from territorial acquisition through the de facto possession of Timrid material in the form of architectural infrastructure, as well as personnel, that is, the artists, artisans and administrators who maintained the constant supply of design and products for internal and external consumption. Thus we find the famous Timrid painter Bihzad lauded under the Safavids, while the Nostalic master calligrapher Mir Ali is taken as a captive by the Uzbex under whose regime he protests his servitude forced to move between the cities of Herat, Samarkand and Bukhara but essentially carrying forward the tradition of the Timrids into the Uzbek school. For the Safavids and Uzbex, the Timrid style was not so much international as it was local. The Ottomans ruling Anatolia on the other hand could not access the same resources in situ. Whatever they could glean in traded goods was bolstered in the midst of the Timrid empire's fragmentation. Demands from the Safavids for manuscripts as booty after the battle of Chaldiran in the summer of 1514 are well known. Other factors include the capture and voluntary migration of artists administrators, former Timrid nobles and scholars carrying with them their private libraries. This can also be seen in the westward movement of Herat's last Timrid ruler Badi-Uzaman Mirzah who fleeing the Uzbex first sought sanctuary with the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail at Tabriz. But when Tabriz fell to the Ottomans he travelled to Istanbul with the surviving remnants of his manuscript library. The westward flow of such portable documentation comprising albums, scrapbooks, the technical manuals explaining and recording the range of Timrid design acumen could not but help to stimulate the extended period of experimental examination and synthesis over the course of the 15th century. Constituting the transferable blueprints for the international Timrid style the material recycled and rearranged this material recycled and rearranged in later formats can today be seen in the dispersed corpus known under various labels including the Siachalum albums, the Dietz albums, the Baesunkur album, the Baba Naqash album and the Topkaposaray album to name but a few sources. And here's a flavour of the kind of material that is contained in such albums. This is a folio from a Dietz album which is in Austria. By contrast the precarious fortunes of Babur whose territories were limited to the environs of Kabul at the time prevented him from capitalising on the misfortunes of his cousin Badi Urzaman Miza on the fall of Herat. But that does not rule out the eastward flow of Timrid design acumen with portable objects, materials, manuscripts and indeed Herati refugees recorded as having joined the prince. Unlike the Ottomans whose libraries better preserved the diversity of the Timrid heritage they were able to collect, we can still estimate the richness of libraries Babur and his connoisseur successors assembled from a few of its illustrious manuscripts which include a quintet for Amir Shire Ali Navari which is in the Royal Collection. The Shah Nama of Muhammad Juki which is in the Royal Asiatic Society. The British Library's Bustan of Saddi, the Garrett Zafar Nama and many other manuscripts. Here is a leaf from the British Library's Bustan showing some of the seals at the end of the manuscript indicating that it is a very popular work and these works were not locked away in a cupboard. They were all to be examined, read and enjoyed and also their cultural value somehow inflated their monetary value. So these manuscripts that survive are at the top, the cream of the library's collections including the British Library's. However strained the Timrid dynasty's transition to India may have been requiring as it did the assistance of Safavid rulers over two generations and by that I mean Shah Ismail and both Shah Tahmas both helped the Timrid rulers to re-establish themselves. The transition of the Timrid design acumen and appreciation of the hegemonic international Timrid style was far more assured and perennially revisited as sources for an ornamental repertoire. Coming to the second part of my original question the transition to India can be said to have reformed the sartorial and textile culture at court to better reflect the adaptation of and adaption to local ethnic cultural environmental and exotic influences over the centuries. The Timrid court maintained for at least over 200 years patterns of peripatetic movement as part of its system of government living more often than not in opulent tents just like their moor and subject to the changeability of daily and seasonal weather. How the body is clothed therefore reflects seasonality and also formality and style in accordance with convention. With the exception of inscribed curtains, wall hangings, rugs and occasionally tents textiles are rarely dated and their survival as intact garments is further limited by numerous factors. The calamities of war, looting, fire, flood, insect damage are common causes for loss and destruction. To this we can add the practice of burning garments annually for the retrieval of precious metals. The unpicking of metal studs, applique, fringes, beading, the redistribution of garments to members of the royal household and beyond but also social prejudices relating to hygiene, the fear of bodily cross-contamination, the transference of bodily substance to garments feared to have been used mischievously in magic or at risk of and therefore they all get destroyed either buried or burnt. Contemporary historical records may comment on the significance of certain types of garments worn or awarded at particular occasions. As images can summarise a thousand words contemporary paintings may vividly capture the appearance of garments in the way text cannot, especially in the imperial chronicles and journals that are the Babur Nama, Akbar Nama, Jahangir Nama, Padshah Nama, and so on. As well as the imperial albums known today as the Salim Album, Khurram Album, the Gulshan Gulistan Albums, the Kevokian Minto Wantage Albums, the Nasiruddin Shah Album, the Late Shah Jahan Album, etc. Lovely lists. Before delving too deeply however, the limitations of painted representations of men and women should be taken into consideration. Understanding circumstances influencing the representation of women, especially elite members of the private domestic sanctum and gendered spaces of the imperial Andarun or Herum, is paramount for evaluating the accuracy of portraiture and attire. Most of the artists whose works end up in the illustrated chronicles and albums I've just mentioned are men. I do not think it too far fetch to argue that the male gaze and the male gaze and women of the imperial Herum are two components that do not make for accurate portraiture. The projection of the male artistic imagination over the purported likenesses of identified or identifiable women is, I believe, problematic. Equally, just because the identity of the likeness best fits a particular scenario mentioned in an inscription or historical passage, it does not automatically follow that the likeness is wholly accurate as a portrait, no matter how believable it is. Frequently we find in albums, attributions, or inscriptions saying this is a portrait of Nur Jahan, this is a portrait of Mumtaz, this is a portrait of Jahan Arar, famous figures in history, but nevertheless would they have posed nude for certain portraits? That's a question that we all need to ask. I mean, do we ask the same question about the royal family posing nude today in certain magazines? So the same question would apply even to the mobile puzzle. It has been suggested that certain album paintings depict female members of the imperial family, which is a point I've just made. One example apparently shows the wife of Jahan, a cousin of Mumtaz Mahal, the consort of Emperor Shah Jahan. So it's a very attractive image, but is it a portrait? That's the question. Here, just here, you find an inscription saying Bibi Farzana. So if it's the same Bibi Farzana or Farzana Begum, the likeness gives the impression of being a closely observed portrait until we look at another painting of Jahan, her husband, embracing his consort who should resemble the same Farzana Begum. So this would be Farzana Begum by the context. She could be a concubine, but she should be Farzana Begum, and is there a correspondence between the first likeness and this likeness? This does not say that this is Farzana Bibi, the previous one did, but is the inscription also reliable? Questions abound. Paintings by women of the Haram themselves are perhaps the secureest way of circumventing or subverting the male gaze. And yet the identity of the subject is not always indicated as systematically as we would like. And also we don't always have clear inscriptions saying that this is the work of a certain lady. So here, for example, at the bottom it says the work of Tulsi in the hand of Shah Jahan. But we don't know about the identity of this sitter. Is this an imaginary work? Is this a portrait of a lady in the Haram? We have got past that idea that this is a product, a painted product for the titillation of men because it's produced by a woman, but does that really suspend those questions because it's in an album for all men to enjoy? So these are just questions I pose. I don't think I can answer them perfectly. So these paintings are essentially rare and because they're so rare, I think evaluating them and evaluating their content is a difficulty for us. Thankfully we do not need to rely on such paintings to understand the diversity of sartorial culture as other female functionaries and Haram staff circulated around and within male spaces, bridging the gender divide under the mediation of eunuchs to guide and correct male artists on points of detail. Where gender bias may not be a significant concern, paintings created specifically by the artists to demonstrate his or her creative imagination and technical skill are yet another potential unreliable source. So what I mean is that some paintings are created as bravura expressions of skill. Sometimes you'll have a textile garment but full of a design that you think won't ever be worn and certainly it won't fit in that way around the body. So clearly these kinds of compositions are expressions of skill rather than being purely representational. So this is what I mean about representation of women in a courtly setting where you can see the divide between space. Here below you have a male space. Men who are scientists, astrologers, astronomers making their calculations while here you have a nativity scene. So if a male artist is able to imagine this, we can take it simply at that level. But if this artist is saying that this is the actual portrait or arrangement of women in a particular scene at the nativity of such and such, that's where I think we have difficulty. But I think the detail that I want to draw your attention to is here which is that certain women, especially senior women, women who are not threatened by the sexual charge of the male space are able to move in and out and to mediate discussions, information between female and male space, private space, public space. As already glimpsed, the range of clothes courtly women are depicted wearing falls mainly into three types. So I'll just reverse back. Firstly, the full length sleeved tunic or jamma, narrowing up the waist and worn in conjunction with a tall hat. This is relatively close to the attire worn in earlier timurid periods. So I'm talking about this kind of long-sleeved tunic. It's almost like what we might call a maxi. And it's worn with this tall hat here. This lady is also wearing a tall hat. I'm not sure if she's got a full length jamma on. The second is a bodys or choli, terminating above the stomach and a separate skirt or gagra, extending from the waist down to the feet, with a long scarf wound around the body and head. This appears to be an early version of the modern-day sari. So we may find examples in this painting, but there's an example here. So your skirt here, the gagra, your choli, and then this orange diaphanous cloth is gathered in pleats at the front and then wound around the body and then taken over the head. Thirdly, a full-length sleeved tunic with an opening below the bodys, called a beige vase, worn with tight pajamas and usually with a headscarf draped over the shoulders. So this lady here is wearing a beige vase. So beige vase means opening front, or frontal opening, which is this large slit which comes from underneath the bodys. The bodys is a separate unit and the skirt is essentially stitched on separately, so it's not just one shirt or tunic, and then it has this rent down the front. And it's worn with a pajama and what she has is a scarf, which is a very slender indication of a scarf, and this scarf is fulfilling the function that the sari is for this lady here. But this is a slightly more suggestive image, so let's just leave it at that. The second and third types, that is these two, the gagra, choli on the right and on the left, the beige vase, the second and third types rely on the use of diaphanous materials and which is not much encountered in earlier Timurid usage. Only the beige vase permits the use of a brocaded waist sash, or patgar, the ends of which hang from the waist to the feet. So this is a unique form of patgar that only women have as part of their clothing, and although I'm going to continue by talking about patgar's now, or waist sashes, I won't be talking about this particular type. This has a particular type of design that I think if I were to go into, it would probably bog us down. But this gilt textile, this brocade, is what I call the patgar, which is the waist sash. Men's attire differs somewhat in that the main tunic, or jama, terminates below the knee, opening either to the right or left side, tied with ribbons and worn with tight pyjamas akin to jordbwres. We haven't got to that yet, but you'll see some examples later. The jama does not narrow out the waist unlike the beige vase. Sorry, that wasn't me. The beige vase does not narrow out the waist and the skirt is not attached separately. The jama is brought together at the waist by at least one patgar, knotted at the front. So there's no side knotting, it's not knotted at the back, it's all done at the front. Now one at least, but sometimes two, occasionally three, and very seldom, but only for princes and kings, because they have a jewelled belt on top. In cases where the brocade patgar is tied, an additional patgar of white cotton is tied on top to prevent wear and tear to the brocade, which is normally a very fragile material which can't take too much tension. Like the patgar, turbans and caps are always worn in formal and public occasions. The absence of a turban indicates the lack of honour. So if you go out in public and you're not wearing your turban, there's a problem. And that applies also to the earlier Tiberid periods. So it's not about profiles, side profiles, which is a point that is made by some art historians about mogul conventions for representation. You must have your turban on. If you don't have your turban on, whether you're shown frontally, a three-quarter or side profile, doesn't matter. Like the tie worn with the modern suit, the patgar is the main item expressing the male wearer's personal taste. A signifier of wealth, the design of male patgar sashes is an important arena for the experimentation and development of silk brocades in a manner unprecedented in earlier Tiberid conventions. Then the ends of functional, plain, cummerbund sashes were simply tucked in. In India the ends were allowed to hang down and so variations in the length and types of fabric or combinations of the different varieties of brocade created opportunities for sartorial self-expression. Let us turn now to explore the extraordinary period in the reign of the Emperor Jahangir. This is Jahangir. Extraordinary period in the reign of Jahangir, the great grandson of Babur, laying the foundations for changes in the ornamental repertoire that shifted later Timurid design away from the earlier international Timurid style, as we understand it. The Emperor Jahangir's relations with his three sons were a little odd, a combination of frustration and indulgence. The eldest Prince Khosrow was blinded and imprisoned after two failed rebellions just after his father's accession in 1605. The second eldest Prince Parvez had long been exiled to the fort of Ilahabad in disgrace since Khosrow's second rebellion. The third son Prince Khhorram, whom we know as Shah Jahan. This is Prince Khhorram. It says here, Khhorram Mirza. This is a child representation of the very youthful Khhorram, but it may not be a portrait. It may be a projection. The third son Prince Khhorram, we know as Shah Jahan, was the recipient of many paternal favours and imperial largesse, seemingly by default, but also by dint of his abilities that were revealed when in the care of his grandfather, the Emperor Akbar. Akbar fostered Shah Jahan and his wife, the childless Rwkegesultan Begum, was his foster mother. Together, they had a very intimate circle and when Akbar was on his deathbed, Khhorram wouldn't move away from his deathbed and there's a great discussion in some of Khhorram's own histories of the affection he had for his grandfather over and above his own father. In fact, he didn't like his father much, which is not odd. A diligent student of the arts, Shah Jahan quickly gained a reputation for the excellence of products created in his princely workshops and his taste in metalware, carved jades, crystals and jewels were applauded by Jahangir. As recompense for military campaigns against the Mervar Rajputs and the decan sultanates of Ahmadnagar, Golconda Bidapur, Shah Jahan was eventually given possession of the very artistically expressive state of Gujarat where, and this was given as his personal fief so he could do whatever he liked in Gujarat and this is in 1618 just at the time that the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Rowe arrives. The only thing is that the two didn't get on. So we have a very, shall we say, creative impression left of Shah Jahan by Sir Thomas Rowe, but nevertheless it's an interesting time because Gujarat was the centre for brocade production in India. Shah Jahan's mind may have been diverted at the time that Sir Thomas Rowe tried to transact with him so that could be a reason why the two didn't get on. With the permission of his father, the prince was keen to establish a rapport with the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas whom he called Amun, uncle. Alongside letters written in elegant prose, the carved jades, rock crystal vessels and jewels produced in his workshops which Shah Jahan selected personally were sent in consignments along with Gujarati brocades as a means of stimulating demand. Now, if we remember that Shah Abbas is at this time already settled at Isfahan and he has established the new quarter at New Julfa where Armenian communities are producing silk, silk products and the trade of silk. So silk somehow becomes a way in which the two can communicate and exchange ideas artistically. Descriptions of the textiles are limited to official letters and chronicles but even then, as I've already said, images can cover a thousand words and essentially we don't have that kind of detail in the text to justify very vivid descriptions. The succession of three missions between 1618 and 1622 dispatching consignments of brocades that were praised for their innovative and delicate designs and further complimented by Johangir as surpassing in quality the variety of productions even in imperial workshops. So it was a big deal. Clues to the appearance of these fine brocades can be found in the portraits of Shah Jahan's associates and Johangir himself dating between 1618 and 1622 or slightly later. So a few paintings with a bit of a whirlwind indication of what these brocades might have looked like. So here's a very colourful representation of Shah Abbas. This is Shah Abbas, the diminutive chap with dark skin, which is very odd because he's Iranian and has dark skin, but nevertheless in this representation by an Iranian, by the way, Abul Hassan was an Iranian and this is the gigantic Johangir peering over him. So the patka. Now we have two patkas. This is the brocaded type made in Gujarat based on polychrome silk and gold and this is something called Bhanpej which is a form of tie dyed or silk but probably here we have silk. Here is another example of the same kind of language of if we return here you see these brackets here along the edges these interchanging brackets and the same kind of interchanging brackets occur here which means that there is a certain typology that is being developed in these paintings. So in this painting, Johangir is not so large this time except he is standing on top of the globe showing peace and right at the very bottom we have representation of an Indic figure called Manu who is almost like the primordial man Adam and what Johangir is doing he is shooting Dalidr. Dalidr is a representation of poverty in who is normally eshwyd at Dosera which is one of the major Hindu festivals. Here is an image sometimes called a representation of Prince Salim sometimes called a representation of Prince Khurram there is no ascription only the name of the artist Bechidr so you can make of this whoever you like but here you have on his shoulders the Gujarati Bandhege and here you have a Gujarati Brocade again, bright colours sometimes there is a variation between the kind of ornament that is on here some of it does relate back to the international Timurid style so that's the point that I'm trying to make that here is the typology again and this is a representation of one of Shah Jahan's most important associates the Rai Raiyan who gets the title Raja Bikramajid now he is executed by Jahangir in 1622 so this portrait could not have been made any later than that and the title is written here on the side should be here Raja Bikramajid it resembles Jahangir's handwriting can't be too short but it resembles Jahangir's handwriting so if that is the case this is made at a time when Raja Bikramajid is in favour he is wearing again another one of those brocaded batgas on top of which is a plain white cotton batga so if you remember I said these brocades are rather fragile you don't really want them to be taking the full weight of your stomach breathing in and out, heaving etc so the white batga is there to take the force consisting of single and group portraits where the peculiarities of the brocade batga are clearly displayed showing polychrome silk and gold thread highly classicised floral scroll divided into cells or elongated cartouches or combining cusp interchange designs along vertical edges in a nice summary of what these batga motifs or designs are like bandage or polychrome tie dyed cotton or silk fabrics with geometric patterns were previously highly prized under emperors Akbar and Jahangir who made a point of wearing them as batga sashes in combination with other brocades in the midst of the fashion for Shah Jahan's newer more opulent Gujarati batgas bandage appears to have become somewhat downgraded so occasionally you'll find that women of the harem who are maids and not the elite ladies sitting on golden thrones are wearing bandage sometimes you find servants who are merely picking up clothes from the floor or laying out the bed sheets are shown wearing bandage but no longer are princes shown wearing bandage sometimes Shah Jahan who you'd expect would be wearing bandage being the fief holder of Gujarat he doesn't wear bandage so there is something that's going on between the two types of batga types bandage and brocade just as Prince Shah Jahan and his influence at court is reaching its apex Jahangir's health began to decline dependent on addictive substances like alcohol and opiates since his adolescence respiratory complications and later mental instability meant that physicians encouraged Jahangir to move to cooler climbs in order to avoid fate that befell both his younger brothers Daniel and Shah Murad both of whom died of alcoholism the late 1610's and 1620's were thus dominated by the ailing emperor's frequent visits to the northern provinces of Kabul, Lahore and Kashmir both Lahore and Kashmir especially attracted Jahangir's attention which resulted in the remodelling of Lahore 4 and Kashmir was subject to the creation of the Shalamar Bagh a formal garden divided into terraces although Jahangir patronised these projects he deputed his trusted son Shah Jahan to complete the structures with the same finesse and design acumen displayed in the objects produced in his workshop at the same time both father and son were transfixed by the beauty of Kashmir's varied blossoms peonies crocuses and other plants that resulted in a number of plant studies for incorporation into albums so this is the point at which I think I'm trying to suggest Floromania begins the need to furnish the newly completed palace in Lahore Fort and the Kashmir Gardens with carpets, cushions, hangings other upholstered fittings forced artisans of the Imperial Workshop to reconsider their established patterns of asymmetrical, figurative and abstract, roomy and khitai floral arabescs in carpet design for example and to begin incorporating elements of the floral studies inspired by Kashmir's diverse plants and blossoms such changes do not find their way into the Gujarati brocade the brocaded patkas however as the emerging imperial taste for Floromania was initially confined to artisans of the Lahore Kashmir axis so there is a geographical bias developing here so here we have another image of the same patka dichotomy but perhaps in a slightly more simplified style so here we have an example of a carpet made most likely in the late Akbarie style where you have almost like a free-for-all of animals of the hunt Indian Flora and Fauna specifically Indian you have lots of tigers you have lots of gazelles, Neil Guy and other animals specific to India you have peacocks you have also these very prominent palm trees and you don't find that in the Iranian or Timurid repertoire so this is a very distinct form you have in the cartouches here khittai and roomy forms of ornament so there is a juxtaposition between the main field and what is in the borders so this is what existed before and then suddenly you have gradual incorporations of naturalistic florals so this is a field the main field is taken up by khittai style arabesque with large floral heads in a stylised side profile not front on but side profile in the centre of these little units you have naturalistic florals suddenly emerging in the borders you have these almost symmetrical but that's to be taken on as a developmental style element but these florals show that they are sprouting from a ground that they have small leaves large leaves that they are not symmetrical they don't have necessarily essential axis that over rules their natural form so that's an incremental or intermediate style then you have full blown florals and there is a comparative example even in the exhibition so I'd like you to try and pay attention for I mean this is a carpet but the example that's in the exhibition is a very nicely made embroidery in 1622 Shah Jahan is declared a rebel due to palace intrigue and any interest the prince had in the further development of the naturalistic floral style in textiles and especially in his workshops specialising in polychromatic brocades had to wait until a reprochmore could be arranged but there was no reprochmore and just as the prince thought he would join his uncle Shah Abbas exiled in Iran news broke of Jahangir's death how convenient after six months Shah Jahan cautiously approached the capital at Agra where he ascended the throne the early years of his rule were particularly unstable being marked by several invasions rebellions, famines and also tinged with personal tragedies including the death of several infants and his beloved wife Mumtaz the impact of the latter event reverberated throughout the state for several years with many austerities a more celebratory change of mood came with the occasions of the marriages of Shah Jahan's two eldest sons Dara Shako and Shah Jahan sorry Shah Jahan Shah Shajar which came in rapid succession accompanied with the full pomp and splendor of the state so the state had been essentially saving up its resources and essentially let out a lot of steam by the production and gift giving of brocades and very fine products that Dara Shako was very proud of because he also took a great interest in brocades and there are passages in the Patronama where Dara Shako is discussing with Shah Jahan certain policies on brocades so we mustn't rule out the importance of texts following this the emperor made a visit to Kashmir via Lahore to revisit some of the sights and sounds that he wants enjoyed as a prince the exercise rekindles with great intensity the earlier interest in Floromania recorded in great detail in the Regnal Chronicle of the Patronama which devotes folio after folio to the effusive observation of Shah Jahan's passionate admiration for the flowers of Kashmir his preferences for certain flowers and the replanting of certain flowers as well as memories of happier times with his father and also his wife although Jahangir's exploration of natural phenomena has already been studied several times Shah Jahan's interest always has a story attached either a significant personal reminiscence or else an interesting historical anecdote Shah Jahan's expedition to Kashmir fell in the seventh Regnal Year further visits to Kabul broadened his horticultural interest into the dynastic and ideological potential for such subjects through a deeper study of Babur's policies as a gardener and patron of gardens unlike his visits with Jahangir when Shah Jahan lacked the time and access to his workshops to build on the naturalistic discoveries by reforming the output of the silk workshops and I'm talking about the Gujarati brocades again now the emperor was keen to reform the ornamental repertoire if not only transitioning from the Rumi and Qitai arabesque ornament then to change elements like floral heads and buds so that it could better emphasise naturalism in design so previously where we saw arabesks with abstract peony heads lotus heads now we see naturalistic peonies we see naturalistic roses irises poppies tulips blossoms that are distinct in their profile and have also colouristic properties looking at the brocaded butgas for men the enlargement of end panels with a plain gold ground forces the eye to focus on the repeated plant motif across the horizontal plane so this is the kind of thing I'm going to show you white dordami muslin embroidered with either gold and coloured thread now became ever more colouristic and with free floral borders brocaded robes of honour or khilates exhibit the switch to ever larger and complex floral motifs repeated across the ground such as in this painting of the reception of Ali Mardanhan who was the Safavid governor of Qandahar who defected to Shahjahan's court in the 11th Regnel year so we have here Shahjahan seated on a high dais this is Lahore Fort by the way and here you have the scene for the ambassadors sorry not ambassadors Ali Mardanhan's arrival he brings here his tribute of horses and many other jewels that's a detail of Shahjahan seated above now this is the khilate this is part of a sarapa which means a head to toe treatment of gilded brocade robes gilded brocade or partly gilded brocade turban sashes waist sashes shoes boots belts everything that a gentleman would need for his ennoblement or to show his promotion and what we have is suddenly large florals being shown on a gold ground for khilates and this pattern continues oh by the way this chap here I think what you call a doodami a doodami muslin is very fine muslin but with very delicate gilt embroidery sometimes picked up with colours it's not based on silk that's the main difference but it is the doodami technology that feeds into the decony technology of kalamkari and also chintz making and all of these other things print technologies whereas here it is being woven into the muslin so there is a switch at a later stage but anyway that's another point right here is Shah Jahan seated on a seat a lot of throne seat and he's honouring Darashukur his eldest son who is wearing another one of these extremely embellished brocades with large florals a wonderful thing about this image is you see what I mean about the patkar design ok so these brocades now develop on the end portions of the hanging patkar large panels these panels have a golden ground a plain golden ground and on that plain golden ground then you have these super enlarged floral designs repeated florals the same floral normally not alternating plants so that essentially the naturalism of the depicted plant can be captured and the base unit which is essentially the width of the thread is what determines both the amount of detail you can cram into that space and also the size or the height of the gilt panel is repeated on either side of the sash and then in the intermediate space you have something that essentially allows the textile to be tied without an additional white patkar on top so you see the use of single patkar not double patkar we have seen something like this naturalism before at the court of Sultan Suleiman Khan we see the emergence of a style of asymmetrical floral ornament called the Shugufa style further developed by the painter illuminator called Karamemi decorator of the Divane Muhibbi for example unlike mogul album borders or illuminated manuscript borders the orientation of the ground is not resolved in these leaves which is made around the mid 16th century in Ottoman Anatolia for the royal patron probably the Sultan himself and here we have one which shows that these flowers naturalistic because they are not trying to be symmetrical they are trying to depict real floral types but still abstracted to a certain level and their ground is always orientated downwards so on this page you see the florals all arranged with their sprouting base at the bottom here however you find that the ground is the frame the jadvo of the text so this kind of convention for naturalism is not always resolved in earlier phases but my point is that it does occur but it doesn't influence what we encounter in India the naturalistic floral style that emerged under Shah Jahan on the other hand was far more enduring than Karamemi's as part of an ornamental repertoire revolution one that in many ways supplanted the vocabulary of motifs that constitute the international timurid style in later periods I would argue that this is not Shah Jahan's intention preferring merely to supplement and extend the international timurid styles ornamental repertoire with naturalistic florals mixed in with the khetai and Rumi islami however later generations are the ones who interpreted the simple unit of a flower repeated across a base a grid within a matrix all sorts of interpretations that moved on from the Shah Jahan heritage and yet the association with Shah Jahan was maintained I conclude by returning to the question I raised at the very beginning about synergies across arts if we look at the artistic administration of earlier timurids especially prints by Songhur the son of Shah Rukh unity of style was a policy that grew out of the activities and capacity of the scriptorium to support the design of most fields of material culture under Shah Jahan the naturalistic floral style was one of several modes of embellishment coexisting in parallel I think I should leave it there I thought I would end on a slightly provocative image having already discussed this well that was wonderful thank you very much indeed Sarkib all kinds of questions but I know people in the audience will have too we do have time for a few questions would somebody like to ask a question any answer do you want me to come over there or shall I just answer them from here no no no see if anybody asks a question first yes that lady over there Arabic letters is written in what language please Arabic letters yes is written in what language where sorry what language is it Arabic, Turkish Indian what language is used in India you mean oh here this specifically oh this is in Persian see there was other things there was always some Arabic letters said something but I don't know obviously what so are you referring to a particular image several one of them at the beginning I think there was Arabic letters right at the top most of the pictures include some Arabic letters ok it might take us a while to actually go all the way back at the beginning I think there were quite a lot gosh sorry well enjoy it have I gone past it ok ok back one this one ok alright yes so this is a Persian verse please don't ask me to read it this is a Persian verse something to do with I don't know that's the question in my eyes your reputation does not come ok I don't know what I'm talking about in my eyes sorry in my eyes how can I praise thee why don't you come into the mirror yourself because because because I hope I've got this right because the dots are not always there because because no because because there was no no there was no in the Chinese house right ok ok so the last line is they cannot be such a statue or you know the beloved in the gallery of China so the gallery of China or even factory of China Chinese factory yes ok right have I got that right Hasor ok are there any more questions yes can somebody just interpret that sorry please could you just repeat that the book of the tiger that's his work the book of the tiger sorry the Bible wrote a book called the book of the tiger his autobiography you're talking about the Babur Nama he wrote this book a lot of people said that was the first autobiography of the Muslim world of new ventures Islam it is certainly the case in Turkish literature there are fragments of earlier autobiographical journals in Arabic literature and you go all the way back to the Seljuk period unfortunately because most students of Persian don't read Arabic they would tend to ignore that point and since the Babur Nama which is the title for the Turkish text has been translated into Persians Persians of course think that they have total command of this literature so yes and no it is the earliest autobiographical text in Turkish it is also a major autobiographical text in Persian through translation but it's not the earliest ever in Islamic literature right are there any further questions? yes over there comment how wonderful you should have collected their garments and paid them a lot because I mean these fragments of older textiles are so rare that's why I haven't actually included any of the fragments that I know because they're so decrepit and if you saw them being worn and used how glorious I wish I owned them because they're like gold dust quite literally they're even more valuable to me than gold there was a project also for the re-invention of the experiment to reinvent or understand what the technique is for the development of these brocaded butgas called Minakari which was exhibited at the British Museum I think more than a decade ago probably 15 years ago or something like that and I think it was to show that there is a continuing tradition however there is a discontinuity in the technology behind the tradition there's an appreciation of this kind of floral mania of all types whether it's large flowers or tiny tiny flowers repeated in a matrix in many aspects of even contemporary clothing design you know in the what you might call the sort of pseudo classical style of Bollywood for example maintains the same kind of appreciation of floral mania anything is that they're not able to appreciate sometimes that those who those figures in history who pre-existed Jahangir or Shah Jahan may not have had the same kind of floral mania designs on their clothes so sometimes you have inaccuracies anyway that's just by the by are there any more questions yes I think this has to be the last one thank you at all the libraries of the Timurids intellectuals when they left to travel to parts west of east why were they so valued by the countries they were going into manuscripts generally especially when they're very fine manuscripts illustrated manuscripts, calligraphic manuscripts made on very fine quality materials like paper elaborate mindings etc always fetch a large amount in book markets so leaving aside the issue of it having any timurid connection royal connection or even the product of a private household it would still be valued as an important or refined item so even at the British Library when we encounter a refined manuscript and we still don't know who the patron is we still value it because materials simply sing or speak to us about quality however when the Timurids moved into India and they were disconnected with their previous heritage cities of Samarkand Herat etc and they had this great feeling it's a romantic feeling but they have this great feeling for oh my heritage is and they would go on about what their heritage was and they would define it through portable objects manuscripts were some of the most important portable objects alongside jewels alongside textiles of subtypes jades other things that somehow encapsulated that quality with the Timurids I think on moguls they overinflated perhaps the price so the same price might not have been given by Asapavid or in Uzbek for the same manuscript but certainly the Timurids of India did I don't think they were displayed I mean put on to some kind of book stand and then oh yeah certainly the illustrations said a lot about clothing about society about the arrangement of space where women sat in relation to men the kuryltai or the toy which are the celebrations the ritual celebrations of the Timurid court kuryltai ok I think we're going a lot further back but you know it shows these illustrations in manuscripts show how life in the earlier Timurid period may have been slightly different in pattern to what the Timurids had become accustomed to in India and especially by the time we get to the 19th century there's a huge transformation in the way in which Timurid courts under shall we say Shah Alam Akbar II Bahadur Shah II were confined to these little spaces within palaces always under guard they yearned for the peripatetic life where they're able to roam they're able to go out for hunting enjoy what they call Y Larch and Qashlarch which is the summer meadow and the winter meadow they're not able to do that so they pine for these kinds of social patterns of behaviour of existence so do I right anyway well that was fascinating I'd like to thank Dr Barbary again for most stimulating evening and to ask if you would like to join us for tea and coffee in the foyer where we can continue this discussion. Thank you so much by the way next week Monday is going to be no rules so happy no rules to everyone