Chapter One

The introduction presents the book’s main arguments, its methodological principles, its objects of study and the social and artistic context of the late Timurid period. While most scholarship on Persian painting has emphasised either painting’s illustrative function or its relation to the patron, this introduction announces that Persian painting could also serve as a self-reflective device, designed to embody and mediate ideas about artistic authorship, medium, and representation. The introduction also provides information on the historical background of late Timurid Herat, on the scholarship of Persian painting as well as a description of late Timurid painting’s visual characteristics, before presenting the Cairo Bustan, a late Timurid manuscript and the study’s centrepiece.