It’s easy to look at the beauty or historic importance of paintings – but it’s rare to find out about the men (it’s usually men) doing the painting. This week, two treats which give more than a glimpse into the craft of painters in the sixteenth century. First, Fiona McLees. Her blog article on her …
Percy Sykes is best known as spy, consul and military man in Eastern Persia. But, with a Persian author, Khan Bahadur Ahmad Din Khan, he also wrote a “second Haji Baba, which would serve as a true picture of Persia [in around 1900], before constitutional reform appeared on the horizon”. This book is an important …
Lord Curzon has described Thomas Herbert’s work as: “by far the most amusing work [on Persia] that has ever been published”[1]. Although Herbert visited Iran in 1626-29 – so, after della Valle and Figueroa – his account was made publicly available much more quickly. The first edition of A relation of some yeares travaile.. Into …