{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O402858"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O402858/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK4612/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK4612/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2013GK4612","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4613","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4614","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4615","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4616","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4617","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4618","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4619","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4620","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4621","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4622","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4623","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4624","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK4625","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O402858/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O402858","accessionNumber":"AL.8327","objectType":"Scroll","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Although it was purchased slightly later, this scroll has long been associated with the Mirza Akbar portfolio of 238 architectural designs on paper, from nineteenth-century Iran. Like the other drawings, the scroll was probably once owned by a working architect in Qajar Tehran. Such designs are a rare survival, but they demonstrate the important role of paper in preserving design knowledge and practising skills. The design types repeated here demonstrate complex ceiling vaulting, which would be created directly on the building-site by drawing and then cutting flat sections in fresh plaster, before installing them into the ceiling above, layer by layer. This guaranteed that the sections would fit perfectly into the ceiling area. The many vaulting designs repeated throughout this scroll demonstrate the perfect execution of a linear plan, for which the plasterworker needed to have complete fluency.","physicalDescription":"Paper scroll formed from fourteen lengths of paper glued together, depicting thirty-eight linear designs for <i>kar-bandi</i> rib-vaulting, in graphite and red ink on white paper.\n\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Mirza Akbar","id":"AUTH316251"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"possibly"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"drawing (image-making)","id":"AAT54196"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Ink on paper.\n\r\nFor each design, the paper still retains the hole from the compass-needle, and a series of un-inked lines scored into the paper surface. These show how the drawing was constructed with a compass and an underlying system of ruled lines, before the final design was drawn in ink. This process also echoes the master builder's work on the building-site, plotting lines into fresh plaster, to be cut into vault-segments once the plaster has set.","categories":[{"text":"Architectural fittings","id":"THES48994"},{"text":"Architecture","id":"THES48993"},{"text":"Drawings","id":"THES48966"}],"styles":[{"text":"qajar","id":"AAT21708"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"SSEA","id":"THES48598"},"images":["2013GK4612","2013GK4613","2013GK4614","2013GK4615","2013GK4616","2013GK4617","2013GK4618","2013GK4619","2013GK4620","2013GK4621","2013GK4622","2013GK4623","2013GK4624","2013GK4625"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"008","id":"THES403683"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Scroll","id":"x44680"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Iran","id":"x30220"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""},{"place":{"text":"Tehran","id":"x35420"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1840-1870","earliest":"1840-01-01","latest":"1870-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"201","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"5648","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Persian Decoration. Working Drawings formerly used by MIRZA AKBER, Architect to the Court of Persia.\r\nNo. 55. - Roll of standard patterns of vaulting.","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Label pasted"},{"content":"<i>moqarnass - tashil</i>","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"muqarnas [a complex vaulting system] - explanation","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Handwritten note"},{"content":"Dessins linéaires pour modèles de figures géométriques usitées dans les anciennes ornementations persanes. \r\nNote: Le tracé à la pointe en blanc indique la base de la formation des figures","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"Line drawings used as examples of geometric designs used in historic Persian decoration. NB: the scored lines indicate the underlying structure of the designs.","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Handwritten note"}],"objectHistory":"Although this scroll has long been associated with the Mirza Akbar drawings series, it was acquired separately to the rest of the group. The scroll was the last item in a consignment of 274 objects of ceramic, metalwork and other media, sold in 1877 to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) by Jules Richard, a French art-dealer based in Tehran. This was the fourth shipment purchased from Richard, who often provided catalogue information about the objects he was selling: in this case, Richard wrote a few explanatory lines in French onto the scroll itself, with the heading  \"moqarnass - tashil\" (muqarnas vaulting - explanation).","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Paper scroll, architectural drawings, graphite and ink on paper, Tehran, Iran, Qajar period, 1840-1870. Associated with Mirza Akbar","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Caspar Purdon Clarke, 'The Tracing Board in Modern Oriental and Medieval Operative Masonry', <i>Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati</i> 6 (1893): 99-110."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Jennifer Scarce, 'The Arts of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries: Architecture, Ceramics, Metalwork, Textiles', <i>The Cambridge History of Iran</i>, 7, eds. P. Avery, G. Hambly, C. Melville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 896-899."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Caspar Purdon Clarke and T. Hayter Lewis, 'Persian Architecture and Construction', <i>Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects</i>, (Session 1880-1881): 161-174."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"R. Phené Spiers, 'Stalactite (Honeycomb) Vaulting, I', <i>The R.I.B.A Journal</i> (26 April 1888): 256-260."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"R. Phené Spiers, 'Stalactite (Honeycomb) Vaulting, II', <i>The R.I.B.A Journal</i> (10 May 1888): 282-284."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Gülru Necipoglu, <i>The Topkapi Scroll - Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture</i> (Santa Monica: Getty, 1995)."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Abraham Thomas, 'The Orient and Ornament at the South Kensington Museum', <i>Art and Design for All. The Victoria and Albert Museum</i>, ed. Julius Bryant (London: V&A Publishing, 2011): 91-102."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Caspar Purdon Clarke, \"The Tracing Board in Modern Oriental and Medieval Operative Masonry\" in  <i>Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati</i> 2076/6 (1893) pp.99-110"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Gülru Necipoglu, \"Geometric Design in Timurid/Turkmen Architectural Practice: Thoughts on a Recently Discovered Scroll and its Late Gothic Parallels\" in <i>Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century</i>, eds. L. Golombek, M. Subtelny, Leiden: Brill (1992), pp.48–67."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Jennifer Scarce, \"The Arts of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries: Architecture, Ceramics, Metalwork, Textiles\", in <i>The Cambridge History of Iran </i>, vol.7, eds. P. Avery, G. Hambly, C. Melville, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1991), pp.896-899"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Caspar Purdon Clarke and T. Hayter Lewis, \"Persian Architecture and Construction\" in <i>The Transactions [of the Royal Institute of British Architectw]</i> (1880-1881) pp.161-174."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"R. Phené Spiers, \"Stalactite (Honeycomb) Vaulting, I\" in <i>The R.I.B.A Journal</i> (26 April 1888) pp.256-260"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"R. Phené Spiers, \"Stalactite (Honeycomb) Vaulting, II\" in <i>The R.I.B.A Journal</i> (10 May 1888) pp.282-284"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Gülru Necipoglu, <i>The Topkapi Scroll - Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture</i>, Santa Monica: Getty (1995), ch.1"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Abraham Thomas, \"The Orient and Ornament at the South Kensington Museum\", in <i>Art and Design for All. The Victoria and Albert Museum</i>, ed. Julius Bryant, London: V&A Publishing (2011), pp.91-102."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Moya Carey, <i>Persian Art. Collecting the Arts of Iran for the V&A</i>, London, 2017, pp.47-67."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[{"text":"Caspar Purdon Clarke","id":"N4707"}],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Jameel Gallery \r\n\r\nArchitectural Scroll\r\nIran, probably Tehran\r\n1840-70\r\n\r\nThe scroll is almost five meters long. Rolled in a leather cover and fastened with string, it would have been attached to the owner’s belt. The drawings show different vaulting systems, to be built in brick (as explained in the images to the right). The designs were scored with a dry point using a compass and a ruler. Some lines were inked in, and colour was added. \r\n\r\nInk and colours on paper\t\r\nMuseum no. AL.8327\r\n","date":{"text":"2013-2017","earliest":"2013-01-01","latest":"2017-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["AL.8327"],"accessionNumberNum":"8327","accessionNumberPrefix":"AL","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Previous number","id":"THES51695"},"number":"8327"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-10-02","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-25","availableToBook":true}}