Under the Safavid rulers (1501--1722) art and architecture in Iran flourished and attained new heights of beauty and brilliance. Representing the latest work of many of the foremost international scholars in this field, this volume contains nineteen papers given at a recent conference at The British Museum. They deal with aspects of Safavid painting, architecture, archaeology, metalwork, textiles, ceramics and the conservation of works on paper, and demonstrate the revival of the study of later Iranian art in recent years. The broad range of subjects covered signals a lively area of research that has benefited from the increased interchange between scholars from Europe, the USA and Iran as well as a more open view in Iran towards foreign travellers: indeed, several of the papers included here could not have been written without access to sites there.

Acknowledgements 

Introduction

The tomb of Shah Ismail I, Ardabil

 Robert Hillenbrand

The imperial setting: Shah 'Abbas at the Safavid shrine of

 Shaykh Safi in Ardabil

 Kishwar Rizvi

Excavations in the western part of the monumental complex

 of Shaykh Safi, Ardabil

 Mahmoud Mousavi

Building for the Shah: the role of Mirza Muhammad Taqi

 (Saru Taqi) in Safavid royal patronage of architecture

 Sussan Babaie

Safavid caravanserais

 Wolfram Kleiss

Jamal va Jalal: a link between epochs

 Barbara Brend

Bahram Mirza and his collections

 David J. Roxburgh

Manuscript Production at the Kazaruni Orders in Safavid

 Shiraz

 Filiz Cagmnan and Zeren Tamndi

Persian portraits of the Russian ambassadors

 Adel T. Adamova

A dispersed Late-Safavid copy of the Tarikh-iJahangusha-yi

 Khaqan Sahibqirdn

 Eleanor Sims

Travelling pattern: a Quranic illumination and its secular

 Source

 Anna Contadini

Pounces for textiles or pounces for pictures?

 Sheila R. Canby

Style from top to toe: how to dress in Isfahan

 Jennifer Scarce

Safavid carpets and nineteenth-century European notions

 Patricia L. Baker

Textiles of the Safavid period woven with gold and

 their connection with figural painting

 Zohreh Ruhfar

Of prayers and poems on Safavid bronzes

 Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani

Riza Abbasi's wine pot and other problems of Safavid ceramics

 Lisa Golombek

The conservation of the Persian and related paintings in the

 collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan

 Ann Leane

A comparative study of Safavid paper

 Helen Loveday

Bibliography

Colour plates I-VIII

Figures