Two Caracals and Two Deer

Folio from a 1544–45 album assembled for Bahram Mirza

• Accession Number:AKM95
• Creator:Attributed to Bihzad
• Place:Afghanistan, Herat
• Dimensions:9.6 x 13.3 cm
• Date:ca. 1485
• Materials and Technique:Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper

• This landscape shows two seemingly wild cats, or more precisely, caracals, observing two deer. The single-page drawing is attributed to Bihzad (ca. 1450–ca. 1535), who was one of the most famous artists of the Timurid period (1370–1507). It was once part of a folio mounted in the same muraqqa’ (album) as Portrait of Hatifi the Poet (AKM160). Shah Tahmasp’s brother, Bahram Mirza, ordered the painter and calligrapher Dust Muhammad to complete this royal muraqqa’ in 1544–45.[1] Although the second half of the inscription indicates Bihzad’s name, it is not a genuine signature. This was the traditional formula used to show respect for the master and to express modesty. Although these words and the surrounding illumination are a later addition, they may well reveal a close relationship between these two masters, Mawlana Wali and Bihzad, at the Herat court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara in the late 15th century.

Further Reading

Bihzad dominated Timurid and Safavid court workshops or ateliers (ketabkhaneh) in Herat, and later in Tabriz, for more than 40 years. In this drawing from the Aga Khan Museum Collection, a caption box in the top right corner contains a fine yet bold attribution in gold nasta‘liq script set on white paper like a cloud floating over a lapis lazuli background. The first half of the attribution is rendered in mixed Persian and Arabic, while the second half is in Arabic. It can be translated as “copy of a work by Mawlana Wali, which was drawn by Bihzad the slave.”[2] The drawing demonstrates Bihzad’s process of selecting his subjects and his response to a model created by Mawlana Wali, who played an important role in Bihzad’s artistic development.[3] Bihzad was trained by Miraq Naqqash, whose master was Mawlana Wali. The mastery of the brushwork, the exactitude of observation, and the naturalistic rendering of every detail in the drawing are clear evidence of a master’s hand, which can be observed in the work of both artists, Mawlana Wali and Bihzad. A popular landscape motif in Timurid art since the mid-15th century, [4] the mountain tree with a gnarled trunk—seen on the right side of this drawing—was Wali’s hallmark.

Caracals possess ears with long, brush-like tips and black colouration, and this characteristic is signalled in their name: “caracal” derives from kara kulak (black ear) in Central Asian Turkish, leading us to Bihzad’s homeland. According to Firdausi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings), completed in 1010, the “black ears” (siyah gosh in Persian) were among the first wild beasts tamed and trained by “the binder of Demons,” Tahmuras. This literary reference provides evidence of the long tradition in Central Asia, Iran, and India of domesticating caracals for hunting purposes. In Two Caracals and Two Deer, the caracal seated on the ground is wearing a neck collar, showing that the animal is indeed domesticated and trained for hunting.

This drawing is one of Bihzad’s earlier works and can be dated to 1485. That would bring this drawing closer in time to the stylistic development of Timurid prototypes, a period when Bihzad was still greatly influenced by his masters.

— Filiz Çakır Phillip

Notes
[1] Anthony Welch and Stuart Cary Welch, Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, 65.
[2] David J. Roxburgh, “Disorderly Conduct?: F.R. Martin and the Bahram Mirza Album,” Muqarnas 15 (1998): 49; Roxburgh, “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting,” Muqarnas 17 (2000): 125.
[3] Ibid., “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting,” 129.
[4] Sheila Canby, Princes, Poets & Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1998), 41.

References
Canby, Sheila. Princes, Poets & Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1998. ISBN: 9780714114835
Phillip, Filiz Çakır. Enchanted lines: drawings from the Aga Khan Museum collection. 2014. ISBN: 9780991992874 
Roxburgh, David J. “Kamal al-Din Bihzad and Authorship in Persianate Painting.” Muqarnas 17 (2000): 119–46. ISBN: 9789004116696
---. “Disorderly Conduct?: F.R. Martin and the Bahram Mirza Album.” Muqarnas 15 (1998): 32–57. ISBN: 9789004110847
Welch, Anthony, and Stuart Cary Welch. Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.