Various Persian manuscripts dating from the 15th and 16th centuries contain illustrations and illuminations signed by their artists in minute script. Often these all-but-invisible signatures are tucked within the frames of illuminated title pieces or worked into a composition’s architectural or landscape setting. Wherever their placement, they were deliberated positioned out of sight and thus contrast noticeably with the easily legible scribal signatures found in contemporary manuscript colophons. This paper will speculate on the motivations for and significance of these hidden signatures within Persian artistic practices and the image and self-image of the artist in early modern Iran. To broaden the cultural perspective, the discussion will also consider comparable signatures in contemporary European (largely Italian) manuscripts and paintings.
MARIANNA SHREVE SIMPSON (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1978) is an independent scholar of Islamic art, and has published, taught and lectured widely on medieval and early modern Islamic art in general and the arts of the book (especially Persian illustrated manuscripts) in particular. Current research interests include gift exchange between Iran and Europe in the early modern period, the color red, medieval Persian ceramics, and Firdausi’s Shahnama (Book of Kings).
From 1980 to 1992 Simpson helped direct the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, and from 1992 to 1995 served as Curator of Islamic Near Eastern Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. From 1995 to 2000 she was Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Islamic Art at the Walters Art Gallery (now Walters Art Museum), Baltimore and continued her affiliation with the museum as Visiting Curator of Islamic Art (through October 2001) and Senior Consultant for the Islamic Manuscript Digitization Project (2009-2010). In recent years she also has served as a consultant for the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
Over the years Simpson has taught as a visiting faculty member at: University of California, Los Angeles; Georgetown University; Princeton University; Johns Hopkins University; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Maryland Institute College of Art; University of Pennsylvania; and Bard Graduate Center, New York. Recent awards include: Paul Mellon Senior Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art; Collaborative Research Award, Getty Grant Program; Senior Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities; Membership, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Dr. Simpson has served as President of the Historians of Islamic Art Association (2011-2013) and recently as Guest Curator at the Princeton University Art Museum (2014-2015). She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and directing a graduate seminar in the Curatorial Studies program at the University of Delaware.