The richness of the painting materials used on Persian manuscripts: a non-invasive investigation

The term "Persian manuscripts" encompasses the library production of countries of Persian influence and culture, comprising manuscripts of Iranian, Turk-Ottoman and Moghul Indian geographic provenance. These works come from a large area extending from Turkey to northern India across modern Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Examples of Persian manuscripts can be found in Arabic, Turkish, Syrian, Armenian and Jewish literature also. The subjects of these manuscripts deal with sciences, philosophy, poetry, Islamism but also Christianity. The main feature characterising these manuscripts, from the stylistic point of view, is the great richness in their decoration, illustrated by beautiful and sophisticated miniatures and writings. A contribution to the knowledge of the materials used in Persian miniature painting art has been given by our group by means of non-invasive analyses performed on a significant number of manuscripts. The manuscripts analysed, ranging from to 15th to 18th century AD, were from the following Italian libraries and museums: Museo d’Arte Orientale, Torino; Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Torino; Biblioteca Reale, Torino; Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milano; Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna. Manuscripts were analysed in situ to characterise their palettes, with particular relevance to the organic colorants. The techniques used were UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry with optic fibres (FORS), molecular spectrofluorimetry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) and optical microscopy. Results from analysis of the cited manuscripts indicate that the richness from the figurative point of view fully corresponds to the choice of precious painting materials. The palettes used by Persian artists (Table 1), in fact, nearly always included precious pigments such as gold, orpiment, cinnabar or vermilion, lake pigments made from scale insects and, above all, the highly valuable lapis lazuli. In particular, the contextual and massive presence of gold and lapis lazuli certify the prosperity of the commissioners. Diagnostic information on Persian manuscripts is not as rich as is information on Western manuscripts. We compared our results with the scientific literature available, in particular with the works by Barkeshli [1,2] and by Purinton and Watters [3]. A relevant difference with this last study is that we identified only red dyes of animal origin (scale insects dyes) and none of vegetal origin (madder). Perhaps the most relevant feature in the palettes of Persian painters is the overall and almost exclusive use of lapis lazuli as blue colourant. Artists from Middle Eastern Asia undoubtedly took advantage of their geographic proximity to the most important source of lapis lazuli, the famous Firgamu mines in Badakhshan province located in modern North Eastern Afghanistan. On the other hand, the name lapis lazuli derives from the homonymous medieval Latin term meaning blue stone, which in turn comes from the Persian word lazward or azure, passing through the Arabic lazaward and the Greek lazourion. The intensive use of lapis lazuli on Persian manuscripts is therefore not surprising. It must be taken into account that Persian artists had at their disposal also azurite from several inland mines and indigo from India. The choice of using only lapis lazuli must be seen as a will to put great symbolic value in their artworks. Of particular interest in Persian librarian production is the great care in the preparation of supports for decorating and writing, which notably differs from traditional methods used in Western miniature painting art. The most relevant feature is paper dyeing, a common practice in Islamic miniature painting art. Paper was dyed before sizing and decoration. This practice was in use in Maghreb since 13th century AD and in Iran since the beginning of 14th century AD. It was performed for both aesthetic and functional purposes: Ali Seyrafi, in his treatise "Golzari Safa" (16th century AD), says that "...paper, once dyed is better, for white surely harms the eyesight”. Many different colour shades could be obtained by skilfully mixing a limited range of colourants. Dyes (e.g. indigo, coccid dyes, saffron, safflower, turmeric) but also a few pigments (red lead) were used at the purpose, both pure and in mixture. Other interesting features were the practice of gold flecking paper, spraying noble metal particles on the surface of sheets with a straw and the practice known as marbling, consisting in the use of oil/water emulsions to create patterns mimicking smooth marble.