ʿABD-AL-QĀDER B. ʿABD-AL-ḴĀLEQ ŠĪRĀZĪ, metalworker of the late 7th/13th century and early 8th/14th century. His one attested signed work is a silver and gold-inlaid brass bowl (Galleria Estense, Modena, no. 8082). It is dated Moḥarram, 705/July-August, 1305 and is the first dated specimen of a series of similarly shaped west Persian bowls with walls which strongly project up to about half their height and retract in a sharp curve toward the lip. Other characteristics are: (1) a densely spaced surface decoration of eight polylobed medallions with princely scenes which are intersected by oblong, shield-shaped inscription compartments, which are set against a background of flowering scrolls; (2) a fishpond design in the base of the bowl; fish and imaginary creatures circulate around a central sun ornament; (3) blessings on the owner, expressed in rhyme (the same verses, sometmes somewhat shortened, appear on several other objects of the period).
Two other metalworkers with the nesba Šīrāzī (and believed to have worked in Fārs) are known from the 8th/14th century, but their products have little in common with that of ʿAbd-al-Qāder, and it is doubtful that any connection existed among their workshops. Moḥammadšāh was the craftsman of a bucket, now in the Hermitage, which was made in 733/1332-33 for a person of high rank at the court of Maḥmūd Īnǰū in Shiraz. Moḥammad b. Rafīʿ-al-dīn signed a candlestick, now in Cairo, dated 761/1360.
Bibliography:
L. A. Mayer, Islamic Metalworkers and their Works, Geneva, 1959, p. 22.
E. Baer, “Fish-pond Ornaments on Persian and Mamluk Metal Vessels,” BSOAS 31/1, 1968, pp. 14-28.
The bowl most closely related to the Modena vessel is M.M.A. no. 91.1.581.
On the problem of the Shiraz workshops, see L. T. Giuzalian, “Three Injuid Bronze Vessels,” a paper read at the XXV International Congress of Orientalists, Moscow, 1960.
A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, “Bronzes et cuivres iraniens du Louvre,” JA 256, 1969, pp. 19-36.
Idem, Le bronze iranien, Paris, pp. 70-82.
(E. Baer)
Originally Published: December 15, 1982
Last Updated: July 14, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 2, p. 134
E. Baer, “'Abd-Al-Qader Sirazi,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/2, p. 134; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-qader-sirazi (accessed on 16 January 2014).
