FLURY, SAMUEL (b. 20 April 1874 in Isabella, Brazil; d. 24 January 1935 in Basel, Switzerland), pioneer of Islamic paleographical studies (EPIGRAPHY iii). Flury’s major contribution to a Persian monument which was without dated inscription was his proposal to date the mosque in Nāʾīn on both paleographic as well as ornamental grounds to the 10th century. After a first important article with Henry Viollet in 1921 (“Un monument des premiers siècles de l’hégire en Perse,” Syria 2, 1921, pp. 226-34, 305-16) a second article based on new photographs made especially for Flury by Arthur Upham Pope followed in 1930 (“La Mosquée de Nâyin,” Syria 11, 1930, pp. 43-58). His research about inscriptions on works of art in numerous collections also enabled Flury to contribute an article to the prestigious enterprise of the Survey of Persian Art (“Calligraphy: B. Ornamental Kufic Inscriptions on Pottery,” II, pp. 1743-1769; figs. 599-622).
Flury’s illness and premature death unfortunately prevented him from finishing the “Atlas of Islamic Epigraphical Ornament” for which he had made numerous notes and drawings. Such an atlas was seen by him as an essential guidebook for research on art history in this field.
Bibliography
(for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):
S. Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions from early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana,Leiden, 1992, p. 14.
S. Flury, Die Ornamente der Hakim- und Ashar-Moschee: Materialien zur Geschichte der älteren Kunst des Islam. Heidelberg, 1912.
Idem, “Samarra und die Ornamentik der Moschee des Ibn Tulun,” Der Islam 4, 1913, pp. 421-32.
Idem, “Die Gipsornamente des Dēr es-Sūrjānī,” Der Islam 6, 1916a, pp. 71-87.
Idem, “Noch einmal Dēr es-Sūrjānī,” Der Islam 6, 1916b, pp. 413-15.
Idem, “Islamische Ornamente in einem griechischen Psalter von ca. 1090,” Der Islam 7, 1917, pp. 155-70.
Idem, “The Kufic inscriptions of Kisimkazi Mosque, Zanzibar, 500 A.H. (A.D.1107),” JRAS, 1922, pp. 257-64.
Idem, “Une formule épigraphique de la céramique archaique de l’Islam,” Syria 5, 1924, pp. 53-66.
Idem, “Le décor épigraphique des monuments fatimides du Caire, Syria 17, 1936, pp. 365-76.
A. Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie I, Vienna, 1967, pp. 58-59, pl. 8.1.
V. A. Krachkovskaia, “In Memoriam Samuel Flury,” Ars Islamica 2, 1935, pp. 235-40.
A. U. Pope, “Obituary,” Bulletin of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology 4, 1935, pp. 51-53.
R. Tschudi, ed., Zur Erinnerung an Samuel Flury (20. April 1874-24. Januar 1935), Basel, 1937 (with a reprint of the obituaries by Krachkovskaia and Pope and original contributions by P. Buchner, E. Kühnel, and O. Spies).