Some of you may already have noticed that UNESCO inscribed the Sheikh Safi al-din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil on its World Heritage list on 31 July 2010. In the citation, it was described as a “rare ensemble of medieval Islamic architecture”; incorporating a route to reach the shrine of Sheikh Safi “divided into seven segments, which mirror the seven stages of Sufi mysticism, separated by eight gates, which represent the eight attitudes of Sufism”.
More prosaically, I can’t think of Ardabil without thinking of the 1,162 Chinese porcelains installed in the Chini-khana there in 1611 following on the waqf of Shah Abbas. Seeing so many pieces from this collection was definitely the highlight for me of the recent Shah Abbas exhibition at the British Museum.
By chance, then, this week I stumbled upon a by Sir Justin Sheil, ‘Knight General and Diplomat’ (but perhaps better known as the husband of Lady Mary Leonora Woulfe Sheil, author of Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia) of the collection in situ – or maybe I should say ‘in use’:
“Close to the tomb [in Ardabil] was a large chamber containing an enormous quantity of blue china of all shapes and sizes, the offering of Shah Abbas to his great ancestor. When any one gives a charitable feast to the poor – a common practice among the Persians – he is entitled to make use of this china, which, consequently, is in a perpetual state of diminution.”
This reminded me of the drawings also in the BM exhibition (click here to see an example) showing dervishes drinking wine and washing their hands using blue-and-white bowls. Sheila Canby wrote in the exhibition catalogue that the paintings established “a link between dervishes and blue-and-white wares that did not exist before the Shah Abbas donation of porcelains entered the Ardabil shrine”. From Sheil’s report, it seems that it wasn’t only dervishes who were able to handle the ceramics – and perhaps the people who were fed at the feasts included craftsmen who could then copy designs and inspect the techniques at close quarters.
There are also, of course, photos of the collection piled up on tables from when it was , with the removal of 805 pieces to the National Museum in Tehran. These have always reminded me (sadly I can’t include them here for copyright reasons, though much of the text of Pope’s work is available if you click here) of the sort of piles of washing up you get after a really big party – and now I’m left with an even stronger mental picture of these gorgeous ceramics being used – eaten and drunk from, washed up, and then put away – rather than just being ‘works of art’ to be looked at from behind glass.
From outside the building looks like a hexagonal (polygon) base with a dome on top. Is my observation correct?
Interesting mixture of European and Islamic architecture.