Template for part of an inscription on the tomb of the Qajar statesman Manuchihr Khan Mu‘tamad al-Dawlah in Qum, Iran; ink on blue paper; Iran, dated 1263 in the Muslim calendar, equivalent to AD 1847. Part of the “Mirza Akbar drawings” (see below), it is from the same inscription as AL.8325:2.

Half-line of Persian poetry and date written in black ink on blue paper cut in the shape of a cartouche. The template was prepared for pouncing by pricking the outline of the inscription with a needle.

Fuchsia Hart reports that this template bears part of the inscription placed around the base of the dome in the interior of the mausoleum of Manuchihr Khan Muʿtamad al-Dawlah, a Qajar statesman who died in AH 1264, equivalent to AD 1847-8; the mausoleum stands in the first court of the shrine of Fatimah Maʿsumah in Qum. She writes that when the inscriptions from the shrine were published in 1976, most of the tomb had fallen into disrepair, but this half-line remained in situ. It seems to have been transferred to the building without the date, but the line is itself a chronogram for the year 1263.

On Manuchihr Khan, see Nobuaki Kondo, "The Vaqf and the Religious Patronage of Manuchihr Khan Muʿtamad al-Dawlah", in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Robert Gleave, London and New York, 2005, pp. 227-44.

For a portrait of Manuchihr Khan, see V&A:763-1876.

Moya Carey reports that this paper template comes from a large collection of assorted architectural designs on paper from 19th-century Iran. They were acquired by the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1875 from Caspar Purdon Clarke, an architect who later became the Museum’s director. In 1874-5 Clarke was in Tehran, working on the new British embassy buildings there. He acquired the designs from two master builders working on the site in exchange for teaching them European building techniques. The two men, Ostad Khodadad and Ostad Akbar, explained that the designs had belonged to a deceased architect called Mirza Akbar; they are therefore generally referred to as the “Mirza Akbar drawings”. The group of designs includes two complete scrolls, and most of the remaining 236 drawings were also once included in scrolls, which Clarke cut up, pasting them on boards. They have been removed from the boards for conservation reasons.

AL.8325:1