DĪVĀNA NAQQĀŠ

 

DĪVĀNANAQQĀŠ, 15th-century painter whose work is known primarily from single-page paintings preserved in the Topkapı Sarayı library, Istanbul. His name is inscribed on five pages now mounted in a moraqqaʿ (album; ms. no. H.2160), which contains paintings and calligraphy of various dates, including many linked to Sultan Yaʿqūb (883-96/1478-90) or other members of the Āq Qoyunlū dynasty (Tanındı, pp. 38-39). He may also be identified with a poet known as Dīvāna Naqqāš, mentioned by the early 16th-century writer Sām Mīrzā (p. 190), who described him as a native of Tabrīz and an intimate of Sultan Yaʿqūb.

The pages in the Istanbul album bearing Dīvāna’s name in either signatures or attributions provide an indication of his artistic achievements. On the most revealing of these pages his name is given as Fażl-Allāh Dīvāna; it contains painted sketches of plants, animals, and human figures (Tanındı, figs. 22, 67) that link his style with a variety of chinoiserie often ascribed to other painters at Sultan Yaʿqūb’s court, for example, Šayḵī Naqqāš; in all these works quotations from Chinese paintings or drawings are combined with elements from the Persian repertoire (Tanındı, pp. 38-39, figs. 105, 107-13). Āq Qoyunlū court painters also illustrated manuscripts in a more traditional Persian style. One such painting in a manuscript of the Maḵzan al-asrār by Ḥaydar Ḵᵛārazmī, dated to 883/1478 (Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, Persian ms. no. 41) and dedicated to Sultan Yaʿqūb, has been attributed to Dīvāna Naqqāš (Soucek, pp. 5-7).

 

Bibliography:

Sām Mīrzā Ṣafawī, Toḥfa-ye al-sāmī, ed. Ḥ Waḥīd Dastgerdī, Tehran, 1354 Š./1975.

P. Soucek, “The New York Public Library Makhzan al-asrār and Its Importance,” Ars Orientalis 18, 1988, pp. 1-37.

Z. Tanındı, “Some Problems of Two Istanbul Albums, H. 2153 and 2160,” Islamic Art 1, 1981.

(Priscilla P. Soucek)

Originally Published: December 15, 1995

Last Updated: November 28, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VII, Fasc. 4, pp. 438-439