Bloom (2004) Fact and Fantasy in Buyid Art

FACTS AND FANTASY IN BUYID ART
Author(s): JONATHAN M. BLOOM

Source: Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 23 (84), Nr. 2, KUNST UND KUNSTHANDWERK
IM ISLAM 2. BAMBERGER SYMPOSIUM DER ISLAMISCHEN KUNST 25. - 27. JULI 1996
(2004), pp. 387-400
Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25817939
Accessed: 27-09-2017 21:45 UTC
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JONATHAN M. BLOOM
(Boston College)
FACT AND FANTASY IN BUYID ART
Membersfrom
of 932theto 1062,
Buyid or Buwayhid
have a reputation as some of the dynasty, which ruled in Iran and Iraq
most lavish patrons
of medieval Islamic art. Descended from the eponymous Abu ?ugac Buyah who
lived in the mountainous area south of the Caspian Sea, this clan of condottieri
masterminded the liberation of western Iran and Iraq from the control of the
Abbasid caliphs. Abu Sugar's youngest son, Mucizz al-Dawlah (r. 936-67), be
came commander-in-chief of the caliphal armies in 945 and quickly made the
caliph his puppet, although he maintained his titular authority. His successors
adopted fancy regnal titles and usurped traditional caliphal privileges by having
their names proclaimed in the hutbah and inscribed on coins. To further legiti
mize their rule, they fabricated a genealogy linking themselves to the pre-Islamic
rulers of Iran and propagated the old Sasanian notion of the divine right of
kings. As Twelver Shicites, they introduced Shicite festivals to Baghdad, prom
ulgated Shicite theology and honored the graves of the Shicite martyrs. This
confessional orientation, however, probably hastened their downfall at the hands
of the orthodox Sunni Ghaznavid and Saljuq dynasties in the middle of the 1 ltn
century.1
In addition to constructing such buildings as the Gurgir Mosque in Isfahan
and restoring ones such as the Friday Mosques of Isfahan and Nayin, the Buyids
and their associates are known from contemporary sources to have constructed
lofty royal mausolea at Rayy and a multistoried 360-room palace at Shiraz.2 One
of the most characteristic features of architecture of the period is the use of small
rectangular bricks set in relief patterns, although the technique is also found out
side the Buyid lands; sometimes the bricks are rendered in plaster, as at the Gurgir
portal. The Buyids also left inscriptions at the congregational mosques of Sava
and Ardistan, as well as at Shiraz, Persepolis, Naqs-i Rustam and Tang-i Buraq.3
1-For the Buyids, see Cl. Cahen, s.v. ?Buwayhids?, in El2; T. Nagel, s.v. ?Buyids?, in Ency
clopedia Iranica; Roy P. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society, Prince
ton, 1980.
2 - For the mosques, see Barbara Finster, Friihe iranische Moscheen, vom Beginn des Islam bis
zur Zeit salgitqischer Herrschaft (Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 19), Berlin, 1994, p.
197-200, 209-223.
3-For Buyid inscriptions, see Sheila S. Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic
Iran and Transoxiana (Supplement to Muqarnas), Leiden, 1992.
OM, XXIII n.s. (LXXXTV), 2, 2004, p. 387-400

? Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino - Roma
388 JonathanM. Bloom
While there can be no doubt about the authenticity of these buildings and in
scriptions, for few Islamic buildings (apart from the Alhambra) have been will
fully falsified, the authenticity of most examples of decorative arts ascribed to the
Buyids has been a matter of some dispute for many decades.4
The unusual iconography and questionable provenance of many so-called
Buyid objects have only fueled speculation that most Buyid art is a figment of
the art-historical imagination. For example, several wooden panels purport to
have been ordered by the Buyid amir cAdud al-Dawlah in 974 for the tomb of
cAlI at Kufa, and were indeed published in the recent corpus of inscriptions from
early Islamic Iran.5 The two largest panels (fig. 1) were published by Gaston
Wiet and first exhibited at the 1931 Cairo exhibition of Persian art, at which
time two smaller panels were acquired by the Museum of Islamic Art there, ap
parently from Rabinou and Acheroff, two well-known dealers in Persian art. In
contrast to the commemorative inscriptions at Persepolis, these wooden panels
bear unusual titles, shahanshah and tag al-millah. Although cAdud al-Dawlah
did not use the title shahanshah on his coins until 981, or seven years after the
purported date of the panels, it has been shown that this title was already used
informally in poetry and on commemorative medals, so it is conceivable that it
could appear on these panels. In contrast, the laqab tag al-millah (crown of the
state) was only bestowed by the caliph in 977, and it would have been presump
tuous indeed for cAdud al-Dawlah to anticipate the caliphal gift by three years.
Although the Cairo panels have not been scientifically tested, they are com
parable to a pair of carved and painted wooden doors bearing distinctly Shicite
inscriptions, which the Freer Gallery of Art acquired at about the same time
(1935) from Hagop Kevorkian. The doors were duly published in the Survey of
Persian Art (here, fig. 2) as dating from the 11^ century and being masterpieces
of their type. Two decades later, however, Richard Ettinghausen noted that they
showed little, if any signs of aging or weathering, so in 1961 a sample was sub
mitted for Carbon-14 analysis. The test produced results suggesting that the
doors were made from modern wood.6
Nevertheless, Buyid art did exist and it was unusual. The historian Ibn al
Atir (who died in 1233), for example, states that on 1 Muharram 378/21 April
988 (New Year's Day) the vizier Ibn cAbbad presented Fahr al-Dawlah, the
Buyid ruler of Rayy, with a gold dinar weighing 11 mitqal (4.25 kg). On one
side it had seven lines of Arabic poetry likening the dinar to a sun and the ruler
to the king of kings; on the other side it was inscribed just like an ordinary coin
with Sura 112 (Iklds), as well as the names of the caliph and the Buyid ruler and
4 - For an earlier view of Buyid art, see Ernst Kiihnel, "Die Kunst Persiens unter den Buyi
den", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschafi, 106 (1956), p. 78-92.
5 - Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions, no. 18.
6-The doors are illustrated in A. U. Pope and P. Ackerman eds, A Survey of Persian Art from Pre
historic Times to the Present, 16 vols, Tehran, 1977, pi. 1461. Ettinghausen's comments and the
results of the C-14 analysis are recorded in the Freer Gallery of Art files for 35.1.
Fact and FantasyinBuyid Art 389
the mint, Gurgan, where it was struck.7

No such enormous coin survives, but several smaller coins bearing Buyid
names and dates are known, although their authenticity has been questioned,
and most are difficult to examine since they are dispersed in private collections.
One bears the name of Rukn al-Dawlah and the date 962; it has a coin-like ob
verse and a neo-Sasanian reverse. A gold medallion in Tehran claims to have
been struck by his son cAdud al-Dawlah at Fars in 969-70; it bears two neo
Sasanian portraits. Three gold presentation pieces were supposedly issued at
Baghdad in the name of cIzz al-Dawlah between 973 and 976; one shows a lion
attacking a stag or an ibex, another shows an eagle seizing a duck or a gazelle,
and the third depicts a seated king and a lutenist. The most accessible is the gold
unepigraphic medallion in the Freer Gallery of Art, which depicts an enthroned
prince drinking on one side and a mounted falconer (fig. 3) on the other. A sil
ver medallion in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, depicts a mounted hunter shoot
ing gazelles. It has been suggested that some or all of these medallions postdate
the Buyid period, but none has yet been proved false.8
Similar problems bedevil the study of Iranian gold and silver vessels. One
must imagine that over the centuries the large majority of pieces produced were
melted down and refashioned, either as coin when cash was needed or as new
plate when taste changed. The pieces that have survived are not those that were
continuously used but those that went out of circulation. Some were sent
abroad, in a tradition stretching back to pre-Islamic times, as gifts to foreign rul
ers and allies to impress the recipient with the valor and prowess of the donor.
In times of crisis plate was buried for protection. When the crisis passed, the
precious metal objects were either retrieved from burial or forgotten, only to be
accidentally unearthed centuries later. Peter the Great's Siberian collection in
the Hermitage, for example, which includes many Iranian pieces, began with ac
cidental finds and the results of predatory excavations in the early 18th century
in northern Kazakhstan and southern Siberia.9
Considering the known interest of the Buyid rulers in the traditions of king
ship in pre-Islamic Iran, it is likely that at least some of the silver plates and ves
sels displaying degenerate Sasanian iconography, such as fabulous beasts, royal
audiences and princely hunters, and commonly identified as "post-Sasanian",
were produced under Buyid patronage for use in the bazm, or wine-drinking
7- Ibn al-Atir, al-KdmilftH-tarih, 13 vols, Beirut, 1402/1982, IX, p. 59.

8- M. Bahrami, "A Gold Medal in the Freer Gallery of Art", in Archaeologica Orientalia in
Memoriam Ernst Herzfeld, ed. George C. Miles, Locust Valley, NY, 1952, p. 5-20.
9 - On the general problem of silver, see among others Boris Marshak, Silberschatze des Ori
ents: Metallkunst des 3.-13. Jahrhunderts und ihre Kontinuitat, transl. L. Schirmer, Leipzig,
1986; James W. Allan, "Silver: The Key to Bronze in Early Islamic Iran", Kunst des Orients, 11
(1976-77), p. 5-21; id., "The Survival of Precious and Base Metal Objects from the Medieval
Islamic World", in Pots and Pans: A Colloquium on Precious Metals and Ceramics (Oxford
Studies in Islamic Art), Oxford, 1986, p. 57-70; A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, "Silver in Islamic
Iran: The Evidence from Literature and Epigraphy", ibid., p. 89-106; and G. H. A. Juynboll,
"The Attitude Towards Gold and Silver in Early Islam", ibid., p. 107-115.
ceremony of pre-Islamic Iran that continued into Islamic times. As these figural
vessels are uninscribed, only careful technical, iconographic and stylistic analysis
may eventually provide an indication of their date. In contrast, a hoard of un
derrated but inscribed silver vessels found at Hamadan and now in the Na
tional Museum of Iran at Tehran has been convincingly identified as the wine
service of a Buyid amir. The hoard comprises three conical bowls, two saucers, a
tray, a ewer, two small jugs, a bottle, and a cup. Each piece, which is otherwise
plain, is encircled by a band containing an angular inscription inlaid in niello,
and seven of the vessels invoke blessings and good wishes on a certain Abu 31
cAbbas Valgir ibn Harun.10 Although this particular amir is not known from
texts, his title "client of the Commander of the Faithful" suggests a date around
the year 1000, right in the middle of the Buyid period.
Many of the shapes found in this hoard are known from individual exam
ples. One such type, found in both silver and gold, is a small (ca 15 cm high)
jug with a round body and a tall flaring neck, sometimes provided with a curved
handle. A gilt-silver example discovered in the Perm region of Siberia and now
in St Petersburg is decorated with peacocks in roundels and inscribed on the
shoulder to an amir who held the same high rank as Valgir ibn Harun.11 An
other gilt silver example in St Petersburg, with more attenuated proportions,
three feet, and decoration in high relief (fig. 4), offers blessings on the shoulder
to Husayn ibn cAli, Shicite names perfectly appropriate to the Buyid period.12
The two most famous (or perhaps infamous) jugs are, however, made of gold
and inscribed with the names of well-known Buyid amirs.1?* The jug in the Freer
Gallery (inv. no. 43.1; fig. 5) is inscribed with blessings to Abu Mansur Bahtiyar
(d. 978), the son of Mucizz al-Dawlah. Raised from a single sheet of gold and
weighing 503 grams, the 13 cm high jug has an unusual curvaceous profile with
little of the distinction between body and neck characteristic of other examples
of the type. The decoration on the body is worked in relief and consists of three
pairs of confronted sphinxes, peacocks and horned animals, each figure enclosed
in a medallion formed by unusual three dimensional, almost-Baroque swags of
foliage which join above in two tiers of trefoil fleurs-de-lys.14 Although the
cinquefoil palmette, sometimes gathered by a band, was a common motif in
contemporary and earlier metalwork, the use of the trefoil palmette is apparently
unique to this piece. The technical excellence of the manufacture and decoration
contrasts sharply with the poor layout of the inscriptions: the major inscription
is written under the lip and begins to the right of the handle and ends in a
10- Pope and Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art, p. 1345-1346.

11 -Marshak, Silberschatze des Orients, fig. 128.
12- Ibid., fig. 127.
13- For medieval sources of gold and the processes of its manufacture in Iran, see James W.
Allan, Persian Metal Technology: 700-1300 AD, Appendix by Alex Kaczmarczyk and Robert E.
M. Hedges, London, 1979, p. 3-13.
14- Glenn D. Lowry, "On the Gold Jug Inscribed to Abu Mansur al-Amir Bakhtiyar Ibn
Mucizz al-Dawlah in the Freer Gallery of Art", Ars Orientalis, 19 (1989), p. 103-115.
Fact and FantasyinBuyid Art
crowded logjam of words that back up on two lines. The minor inscription is
nearly invisible as it is located on the bottom of the body next to the footring.
Scholars have expressed reservations about this piece since a Persian mer
chant brought it to Paris in 1912. Gaston Migeon, conservator at the Louvre
and founder of the gallery displaying Islamic art there, doubted the authenticity
of the jug. It was returned to Persia, since no one was willing to buy it. The
noted epigrapher Max van Berchem had, however, expressed no doubts about
the inscription, which he had read from photographs supplied by Migeon, for it
complemented the three Buyid inscriptions known from Persepolis. Van Ber
chem later suggested that Migeon had unjustly impugned the jug's authenticity,
and Migeon began to be swayed by van Berchem's arguments. Migeon could
hardly imagine that fakers would have been sophisticated enough to work with
scholars to produce a correct inscription, yet he had just heard of the existence
of an analogous jug in Tehran. In any event, the jug was then acquired by the
dealer Hagop Kevorkian, who, convinced of its authenticity brought it back to
Paris in 1913.15 The jug was published as Kevorkian's in the Survey, although it
had long been on deposit at the Freer Gallery of Art, which purchased it in
1945.16 In the definitive 1985 publication of the Freer metalwork, the jug was
deemed problematic and relegated to an appendix, although four years later Glenn
Lowry published it as authentic, claiming that its reputation had been sullied by
the whispered innuendoes and unsubstantiated rumors that challenged the au
thenticity of all Buyid art.17 Although the Freer jug has been known for a rea
sonably long time, the unusual decoration and the location and specificity of the
inscriptions suggests that scholars are not unreasonable to doubt its authenticity.
The other gold jug in Cleveland (inv. no. 66.22), also 13 cm high, has the
more traditional squat body and flaring neck (fig. 6). Wide bands on the neck
and body displaying birds within medallions formed by interlaced bands are
bordered by narrower bands inscribed with a poem dedicated by Abu Ishaq
Ibrahim SabP to the Buyid ruler Samsam al-Dawlah Abu Kaligar Marzuban, the
son of cAdud al-Dawlah, who ruled in Baghdad between 983 and 987 and in
Fars between 990 and 998. For historical reasons, the poem can be dated to
Baghdad between 983 and 985, thereby suggesting a precise date for the ewer.
The Cleveland ewer was first published in 1947 as part of a private collection
which included 18 Persian textiles apparently of medieval manufacture.18 The
collector was later identified as a certain Mr. Mattossian, "a wealthy Cairene to
bacco merchant who traveled frequently to Persia, collected objects for his own
15- The early history of this jug is recounted by Gaston Migeon, "Verdachtige Sassanidische
Kanne. Vortrag, gehalten auf der Petersburger Tagung im September 1913", Mitteilungen des
Museen-Verbandes, 27. Juli 1914, no. 422. I am indebted to Oliver Watson for bringing this
obscure reference to my attention.
16- Pope and Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art, pi. 1343 (in color).
17- Esin Atil, W. T. Chase and Paul Jett, Islamic Metalwork in the Freer Gallery of Art, Wash
ington DC, 1985; Lowry, "On the Gold Jug".
18 - Gaston Wiet, Soieries Persanes, Cairo, 1948, p. 91-98.
interest, and apparently was also not averse to selling some of them occasion
ally."19 Bishr Fares, who identified the Arabic poetry inscribed on the silks and
the ewer, was the first to recognize the poem on the ewer as one collected in the
Yatimat al-dahr, a vast compendium of contemporary poetry anthologized by al
Tacalibl (961-1038). Although many manuscripts of this work are known, a
printed edition was published at Damascus in 1886-87, and an index of persons,
places, and books mentioned in it had been published at Calcutta in 1915.20
The group of silk textiles in the Matossian collection has come to epitomize
the problems of Buyid decorative art. Thirteen medieval Islamic and three Byz
antine silk textiles had been excavated two decades earlier, in late 1924 and early
1925, at a site known as BIbi Sahr Banu near Rayy south of Tehran.21 Some of
the textiles quickly passed into private hands in Tehran, and, as early as March
1925, dealers in Paris began to offer some of them to British, French and Ameri
can museums and collectors, who began to publish their acquisitions. It was not
until the 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art at the Royal Academy in
London that they really came to public notice, when some twenty textiles at
tributed to Iran in the lltn and 12tn centuries were exhibited. Reviews of the
exhibition underscored the importance of these silks, and Wiet, for example,
signaled that no. 73, a textile made up into a tunic, was inscribed with the name
of the Buyid prince Baha3 al-Dawlah (reg. 998-1012). It was eventually ac
quired by the Textile Museum in Washington, DC.
The interest in medieval Persian textiles was sustained in the 1930s, when
seven more examples were exhibited for the Third International Congress for
Persian Art and Archaeology at Leningrad in 1935-36, and dozens more published
in 1939 in A Survey of Persian Art, edited by Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis
Ackerman, his student, associate, and wife.22 Ackerman was largely responsible
for writing the section on textile arts (p. 1995-2256), particularly the lengthy
chapters dealing with the history and weaving techniques of textiles from the
early Islamic and Seljuq periods. Ackerman contrasted the "embarrassing rich
ness" of documentary information about the medieval textile industry in Iran
with the heretofore scanty physical remains. But this situation had changed, she
noted, now that "fifty-odd patterned pieces, in addition to plain and striped
silks, [were] excavated in 1925 in a group of tombs in the vicinity of Rayy." In
19- Dorothy G. Shepherd, "The Archaeology of the Buyid Textiles", in Archaeological Tex
tiles, Proceedings of the 1974 Irene Emery Roundtable on Museum Textiles, ed. Patricia Fiske,
Washington DC, 1975, p. 175-190 (p. 177).
20- C. E. Bosworth, s.v. ?Thacalibi?, in El1. It might be fruitful to compare the text on the
ewer with that of the printed edition.
21 - For the history of these silks, with bibliography to date, see Sheila S. Blair, Jonathan M.
Bloom and Anne E. Wardwell, "Reevaluating the Date of the 'Buyid' Silks by Epigraphic and
Radiocarbon Analysis", Ars Orientalis, 23 (1993), p. 1-42.
22 - On Pope and Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art; see Jay Gluck and Noel Siver eds, Sur
veyors of Persian Art. A Documentary Biography ofArthur Upham Pope & Phyllis Ackerman. A
Companion Volume to A Survey of Persian Art, Asst. ed. Sumi Hiramoto Gluck, Ashiya-Costa
Mesa, 1996.
deed, in her catalogue of 60 early silks, 43 were said to come from that site. This
is the first time a specific number of textiles discovered at the site was men
tioned, and it is significant because Ackerman's numbers are three or four times
the number we now know were actually found there.
Ackerman published 52 different textiles from Rayy in the Survey; three ad
ditional textiles in 1940. In January 1943, in the midst of World War II, Pope
and Ackerman published an article in the Illustrated London News entitled "The
Most Important Textile Ever Found in Persia". It described an unusually large
double-faced silk dated 384/994 (now in the Textile Museum [inv. no. 3.230])
along with an account of the finds at Rayy. Their account of one of the "mo
mentous discoveries in the history of textiles" is dramatic and romantic: ignorant
grave robbers searching for gold had thought they had only found rags, but these
rags had literally turned to gold when their true value was recognized by discern
ing collectors and museums. Nevertheless doubts were expressed by some ex
perts, particularly Mehmet Aga-Oglu, founder of the Research Seminary for Is
lamic art at the University of Michigan, and Maurice Dimand, curator of Is
lamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum.
Ackerman had written that Persian textiles had to be identified on technical,
stylistic and what she called "constitutional" grounds, since inscriptions were of
limited use because they expressed only conventional good wishes, rarely giving
any historical information. The textiles Wiet published in 1948, however, had
many historical inscriptions: some pieces bore explicit dates, others bore specific
historical information which allowed them to be precisely dated, and still others
were inscribed with poetry that suggested dates in the Buyid period (fig. 7).
Wiet's research was demolished by Florence Day, a curator at the Metropolitan
Museum who had studied the silks carefully.23 In a vitriolic review, she chal
lenged their authenticity on historical, epigraphic, iconographic and technical
grounds, stating that some of these textiles were missing the natural signs of
wear, age, and burial, while others were yards long, as if they had just come off
the loom.
At the Fourth Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology convened in the
United States in 1960, such topics as "early manuscript illumination" and the
Persian silks, which were called "Buyid" for the first time, were discussed.24 The
manuscript of the Andarz Ndma, which had appeared in 1950 purporting to be
the earliest Persian illustrated manuscript (fig. 8), was shown to be a crude fake
because of the presence of Prussian blue, the ferric ferrocyanide pigment discov
ered only in 1710.25 The "Seljuk" textiles were also "eagerly discussed" by such
23- Florence E. Day, "Review of Soieries Persanes by Gaston Wiet", Ars Islamica, XV-XVI
(1951), p. 231-244.
24- Arthur Upham Pope, "History of the Four Congresses of the International Association for
Iranian Art & Archaeology", in A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present,
XIV (New Studies 1938-1960, Proceedings, The IVth International Congress of Iranian Art
and Archaeology, Part A, April 24-May 3, 1960), Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman
(eds), London-New York-Tokyo, 1967, p. 2879-2883 (p. 2881).
25 - Rutherford J. Gettens, "Andarz Nama. Preliminary Technical Examination", in A Survey
scholars as Ernst Kiihnel of Berlin and Dorothy Shepherd, curator at the Cleve
land Museum of Art.26 While Kiihnel relied on stylistic and iconographical
comparisons to confirm the authenticity of the fabrics, Shepherd, who had ac
quired a large number of the textiles for the museum and was to become their
staunchest defender, concentrated on the technical features of the corpus, which
she was able to establish at over 100 examples, ranging in date from the pre
Buyid to possibly even Mongol times.
Nevertheless, in 1973 the Abegg Stiftung in Riggisberg, a well-known Swiss
textile collection, published a report expressing grave doubts about 31 of the 39
"Buyid" silks in their collection.27 While many of the silks look old, they were
actually well preserved. Technical analysis suggested that the doubtful pieces had
been produced in the 20th century on Jacquard looms and treated with sumac
and tannin with the intent to make them look old. Shepherd countered with a
spirited defense of the silks, including the results of Carbon-14 dating, which al
though not conclusive, suggested at least that the silks were not modern.28 Mi
croscopic analysis of some silks showed them to be stained with blood and em
bedded with sand and rootlets. Despite Shepherd's findings, many textile ex
perts continued to doubt the authenticity of all Persian silks purporting to be
medieval. In 1987 Donald King established the provenance of sixteen textiles to
the original find site and contrasted them to those that had appeared with un
substantiated provenance on the art market in the 1930s and 1940s, many pub
lished by or through the hands of Pope and Ackerman. While some of these tex
tiles may have come from other excavations elsewhere, King thought most of the
others to be fakes, which - like debased currency - drove the genuine article
from the market.29
In 1993 Sheila Blair, Anne Wardwell and I published the results of our epi
graphic and radiocarbon analysis of the Buyid silks in the Cleveland Museum.30
of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, eds Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ac
kerman, XIII-Fascicle, Addendum A - The Andarz Nama, A/53-A/63, London, 1971.
26- Ernst Kiihnel, "Some Observations of Buyid Silks", in v4 Survey of Persian Art from Prehis
toric Times to the Present, XIV (New Studies 1938-1960, Proceedings, The IVth International
Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology, Part A, April 24-May 3, 1960), eds Arthur Upham
Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, London-New York-Tokyo, 1967, p. 3080-3089; Dorothy G.
Shepherd, "Technical Aspects of the Buyid Silks", ibid., p. 3090-3099.
27- Gabriel Vial, "Technical Studies on the Buyid Silk Fabrics of the Abegg Foundation
Berne", Bulletin de liaison du Centre international d'etude des textiles anciens, 37 (1973), p. 70
80; Mechthild Lemberg, "The Buyid Silks of the Abegg Foundation, Berne", ibid., p. 28-43;
Judith H. Hoffenck-De Graaff, "Dyestuff Analysis of the Buyid Silk Fabrics of the Abegg
Foundation, Bern", ibid., p. 120-133.
28 ? Dorothy G. Shepherd, "In Defence of the Persian Silks", Bulletin de liaison du Centre interna
tional d'etude des textiles anciens, 37 (1973), p. 139-145 (p. 143-145); ead., "Medieval Persian Silks
in Fact and Fancy (A Refutation of the Riggisberg Report)", Bulletin de liaison du Centre internatio
nal d'etude des textiles anciens, 39-40/I-II (1974), p. 1-239.
29- Donald King, "The Textiles Found Near Rayy About 1925", in Bulletin de liaison du
Centre international d'etude des textiles anciens, 65 (1987), p. 34-59.
30- Blair, Bloom and Wardwell, "Reevaluating".
Using the relatively new technique of AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry),

which had been used to give a medieval date for the Shroud of Turin, we con
cluded that the 17 textiles examined fell into three, if not four groups: 4 genuine
medieval pieces, 9 pre-1950 fakes, and 2 post-1950 fakes, the latter identified by
the presence of isotopes released into the atmosphere only after the detonation
of nuclear devices. Testing of two pieces produced results consistent with a date
between the 15th and 17th centuries, although they would not normally be at
tributed to this period on stylistic grounds, and we reserved judgment about
their authenticity. Among the forgeries are some of the best-known examples of
Buyid textiles, including the famous pall of CA1I ibn Muhammad that was
woven to shape.31
The forgeries produced between the discovery of the genuine textiles in 1925
and the late 1940s can be differentiated from those produced after 1950, the
conventional date when the presence of the new isotopes can be detected. While
both groups of forgeries were undoubtedly produced with the intent to deceive
collectors and scholars, the textiles of the first group show a far more sophisti
cated knowledge of the style and epigraphy of textiles actually made in Iran in
the medieval Islamic period. These forgeries were not the fantasies of ignorant
artisans but had been carefully planned by individuals with a detailed, even
scholarly knowledge of textile techniques, iconography, contemporary titulature,
and religious and political history.
Interest in Iranian art had begun in the late 19th century, but it grew after
the constitutional revolution in 1905 when works of art from the Qajar collec
tions began to appear on the market. It blossomed after the fall of the Qajar dy
nasty in 1924. In 1925 Pope made his first trip to Iran and began advising the
new Iranian government. As "Buyid" textiles now known to be forgeries were al
ready exhibited in London in 1931, forged textiles must have been produced as
soon as the genuine articles were discovered in 1925. But forgers of Persian art
were operating long before that date. Already in 1912, the year in which Migeon
first saw the ewer now in the Freer, Frederick Martin commented that Armeni
ans in Paris were forging Persian paintings, and between 1910 and 1915 the Paris
dealer Georges Demotte "improved" the Great Mongol Shdhndma by commis
sioning fake backs or supports for genuine paintings.32 "Revivalist" fakes as well
as forged antiquities began to be manufactured in Iran and Syria as soon as the
tourist trade developed, and already by the late 191*1 century Islamic ceramics
were being forged.33
As soon as a market existed for the real thing, forgers were ready to profit
from it assisted by people who used their knowledge of literature, history and art
31 - Dorothy G. Shepherd, "A Pall from the Tomb of cAlI Ibn Muhammad", Cleveland Mu
seum of Art Bulletin, 49 (1962), p. 72-79.
32 - Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of
the Great Mongol Shah-Nama, Chicago, 1980.
33-Oliver Watson, "Fakes and Forgeries of Islamic Pottery", Album of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, 4 (1985), p. 38-46.
Jonathan M. Bloom
to help meet the demand. The Andarz-ndma provides an important model, for
when scholars quickly demolished it as a forgery, no other forged manuscripts
appeared on the market. In contrast, the majority of scholars were long unwill
ing or unable to accept that most "Buyid" metalware and textiles were forgeries
and so they continued to be produced and collected until recently.
In conclusion, the exact nature of Buyid art remains to be revealed. There is
no point in studying such subjects as fluttering draperies or the iconography of
the ruler in Buyid art when most of what purports to be Buyid is not. First of all
one should decide what is meant: art made for the Buyid rulers of Iran must be
distinguished from art produced during the period when the Buyid ruled Iran. A
corpus of genuine works must be established, using whatever techniques are appro
priate. When possible, pieces should be dated by radiocarbon analysis, although
this is impossible for inorganic items such as metalware and ceramics. But sci
ence is not the only answer: art historical methods are important too. It has been
argued, for example, that only pieces with a secure provenance are worth consid
ering, but research on the "Buyid" silks showed that a genuine piece might have
unknown origins. One should be particularly suspicious of pieces, such as the
Freer and Cleveland jugs, that "look too good" and contain inscriptions that tell
too much about exactly when, where, and for whom they were purportedly
made, or poetry that is too easy to identify from well-known anthologies. This is
exactly what first raised suspicions about the "Buyid" silks, and it should con
tinue to make us suspicious today about pieces of medieval art that appear out of
nowhere for sale to eager collectors willing to empty their pocketbooks.
FURTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY
Miles, George C. "A Portrait of the Buyid Prince Rukn al-Dawlah", American
Numismatic Society Museum Notes, XI (1964), p. 283-293.
Fact and Fantasy in Buyid Art 397
Fig. 1 - Two wooden panels, formerly in the Rabenou Collection. After A Survey of Persian
Art, pi. 1460
JonathanM. Bloom
Fig. 2 ? One of a pair of wooden doors now

in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
After A Survey of Persian Art, pi. 1461
Fact and FantasyinBuyidArt 399
Fig. 3-Gold medallion in the Freer Gal

lery of Art, Washington, DC, inv. no. 43.8
Fig. 4-Partial gilt silver Jug found in

Lysjewka, Perm Region, now in the
Hermitage, St. Petersburg. After Mar
schak, Silberschdtze des Orients, fig.
127
Fig. 5-Gold jug inscribed with blessings

to Abu Mansur Bahtiyar in the Freer Gal Fig. 6-Gold jug inscribed with a
lery of Art, Washington, DC, inv. no. 43.1. poem in the Cleveland Museum
After Lowry, "On the Gold Jug" of Art, inv. no. 66.22
Fig. 7-Silk textile originally published by Gas

ton Wiet in Soieries Persanes, and now in the
Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. no. 55.52
Fig. 8 - Illustration from the Andarz-Ndma in the Cin

cinnati Museum of Art. After A Survey of Persian Art,
XIII, fascicle addendum A

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FACTS AND FANTASY IN BUYID ART

Author(s): JONATHAN M. BLOOM

FACT AND FANTASY IN BUYID ART

OM, XXIII n.s. (LXXXTV), 2, 2004, p. 387-400

the mint, Gurgan, where it was struck.7

7- Ibn al-Atir, al-KdmilftH-tarih, 13 vols, Beirut, 1402/1982, IX, p. 59.

10- Pope and Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art, p. 1345-1346.

30- Blair, Bloom and Wardwell, "Reevaluating".

Using the relatively new technique of AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry),

Fig. 2 ? One of a pair of wooden doors now

Fig. 3-Gold medallion in the Freer Gal

Fig. 4-Partial gilt silver Jug found in

Fig. 5-Gold jug inscribed with blessings

Fig. 7-Silk textile originally published by Gas

Fig. 8 - Illustration from the Andarz-Ndma in the Cin

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