The History of Persian Art, from Persepolis to Today

Persian art is the art made in Iran and the lands of Persian culture over more than 2,500 years, from the palace of Persepolis, begun in 518 BC, to the painters working today. Its main forms changed with each dynasty: carved stone reliefs under the Achaemenids, silver plates and rock reliefs under the Sasanians, pottery written with Arabic script in the early Islamic centuries, inlaid metal and lustre pottery under the Seljuqs, illustrated books under the Ilkhanids, Timurids and Safavids, life-size oil portraits under the Qajars, and modern painting and sculpture in the 20th century.

This page follows that history period by period, with the museum or reference work that describes each one, and a table of dates. It is part of our guide to contemporary Iranian and Persian painting.

Key takeaways

• UNESCO says Darius I founded Persepolis in 518 BC as the capital of the Achaemenid empire, on a terrace that is half natural and half artificial.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art says a Sasanian silver plate showing King Bahram Gur and Azadeh is the earliest known picture of a story made famous by the Shahnameh.
• The Met calls Nishapur, in eastern Iran, celebrated for its ceramics, glass and metalwork of the Samanid period, which it dates ca. 819 to 1005.
• The Met's essay on the Ilkhanids, the Mongol rulers of Iran from 1256 to 1353, says the arts of the book "became a major focus of artistic production" in their time.
• The Met says the Herat school of the Timurids "is often regarded as the apogee of Persian painting", meaning its highest point.
• The Met records that Shah Abbas I moved the Safavid capital to Isfahan in 1597 to 1598 and that single-page paintings became more popular than book illustration there.
• The Met says Muhammad Ghaffari, called Kamal al-Mulk, opened Iran's first Academy of Fine Arts in 1911.

The periods at a glance

The main periods of Persian art, their dates and the art forms each one is known for

Period	Dates	Main centres	Main art forms	Source
Achaemenid	550 to 330 BC	Persepolis, Susa	Palace architecture, stone reliefs, glazed brick	Metropolitan Museum of Art; UNESCO; Encyclopaedia Iranica
Sasanian	AD 224 to 651	Pars, Ctesiphon	Silver plates and vessels, rock reliefs, stucco, silk	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Early Islamic (Samanid and others)	From 651; Samanids ca. 819 to 1005	Nishapur and Khurasan	Slip-painted pottery with Arabic writing, glass, metalwork	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Seljuq	ca. 1040 to 1157	Isfahan, Kashan, Merv	Inlaid bronze and brass, lustre and mina'i pottery, mosques and madrasas	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ilkhanid (Mongol)	1256 to 1353	Tabriz, Sultaniyya	Illustrated histories and Shahnamehs, tiles, tombs	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Timurid	ca. 1370 to 1507	Samarqand, Herat	Manuscript painting of the Herat school, tiled domes, jade	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Safavid	1501 to 1722	Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan	Royal manuscripts, single-page painting, carpets, tiled mosques	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Afsharid and Zand	1736 to 1796; 1750 to 1794	Shiraz	Life-size oil portraits of rulers	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Qajar	1779 to 1924 (Met)	Tehran	Life-size oil portraits, lacquer, lithography, photography, coffeehouse painting	Metropolitan Museum of Art
Modern	After 1945	Tehran	Academic realism, miniature revival, modernist painting and sculpture	Asia Society

The Achaemenids and Persepolis, 550 to 330 BC

The Achaemenid empire began in 550 BC, when Cyrus II, king of Persia, defeated King Astyages of Media. The Met calls it the largest empire the ancient world had seen, reaching from Anatolia and Egypt to northern India and Central Asia. Darius I, who ruled from 522 to 486 BC, began two great building projects: royal buildings at Susa and a new dynastic centre at Persepolis.

UNESCO says Darius founded Persepolis in 518 BC on a terrace that is half natural and half artificial, with a palace complex inspired by Mesopotamian models. His son Xerxes I and his grandson Artaxerxes I added to it. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by A. Shapur Shahbazi gives the terrace an area of 125,000 square metres and says the buildings were kept up until 330 BC, when Alexander of Macedon looted and burned them. In Persian the site is called Takht-e Jamshid, "Jamshid's Throne". UNESCO listed it as World Heritage in 1979.

The Apadana and its reliefs

The largest palace at Persepolis is the audience hall called the Apadana. The Iranica gives its main hall as 60 by 60 metres, with 36 columns, and its columns a height of 19.50 metres. UNESCO describes the typical capital, the carved top of a column: the front halves of two kneeling bulls, placed back to back, whose heads held up the beams of the ceiling.

The art that visitors know best is carved on the two great stairways that lead up to the Apadana. The Met says the reliefs at Persepolis show people from different parts of the empire walking toward the enthroned king or carrying his throne. The Iranica describes the eastern stairway, which was found in 1933 and is better preserved. One wing shows guards and rows of nobles. Many of the nobles hold hands or touch a friend's shoulder. The other wing shows twenty-three delegations bringing gifts, each in its own national dress, with each group separated from the next by a cypress tree. A Persian or Median usher leads each delegation by the hand toward the king.

The Sasanians, AD 224 to 651

Ardashir I founded the Sasanian dynasty in AD 224 after defeating the Parthians, and the Met says the Sasanians saw themselves as the heirs of the Achaemenid Persians. Under Shapur I, who ruled from 241 to 272, Zoroastrianism became the state religion. Arab armies united under Islam defeated the Sasanians in 642, and the last Sasanian king, Yazdgard III, died in 651.

Silver, rock reliefs and stucco

The Met calls finely made silver vessels the best-known Sasanian objects. They were hammered into shape and then decorated. From the reign of Shapur II, who ruled from 310 to 379, the king as a hunter became a standard royal image on silver plates, which were often sent as gifts to other courts. One silver-gilt plate shows the king Bahram V, called Bahram Gur, with Azadeh. The Met says this is the earliest known picture of a story made famous by the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings. Our page on the Shahnameh in painting tells the stories that later painters chose.

The Sasanians also carved scenes of hunting, battle and crowning on the cliffs of Iran. The Met says most of these rock reliefs were carved in the home province of Pars in the first 175 years of the empire, among them the relief at Naqsh-e Rostam in which Ardashir I receives the ring of royal office from the god Ahura Mazda. Coloured stucco decorated palace walls, and the Taq-e Kisra at Ctesiphon, the palace of Khosrow I, still keeps the remains of its great vaulted throne hall. Sasanian silver, silk and designs travelled by trade and diplomacy, and the Met says their style can still be seen in the art of early medieval Europe, Central Asia and China.

The early Islamic centuries, 651 to 1040

After a century and a half of direct rule by the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, local dynasties gained power in Khurasan, in eastern Iran. The Met's essay on coins from Nishapur, by Sheila Canby and Abdullah Ghouchani, says the Samanid rulers came from a Persian landowning family of the Balkh region, and that under them Nishapur became famous for its poets, its scholars and its trade on the Silk Road. The Met excavated at Nishapur with the Iranian government in the 1930s and 1940s, and more than 5,000 objects from the site entered the Met's collection.

The best-known art of these centuries is pottery decorated with writing. The Met owns a 10th-century bowl from Nishapur, 45.7 cm across, painted in black slip, a liquid clay, on a white slip ground. Its Arabic inscription reads "Planning before work protects you from regret; prosperity and peace". The Met notes that the painter shortened, bent and stretched the letters until the words became abstract shapes. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Toh Sugimura adds that Chinese influence was strong on Islamic ceramics of this time, while no trace of it can be seen in painting before the Ilkhanids.

The same centuries produced the text that later painters illustrated more than any other. The Aga Khan Museum notes that Ferdowsi's Shahnameh was completed in 1010.

The Seljuqs, ca. 1040 to 1157

The Seljuqs were a Turkic dynasty from Central Asia. The Met says they defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Dandanakan in 1040, took Baghdad by 1055, and ruled all of Iran, Iraq and much of Anatolia within fifty years. The Met says Seljuq rulers "adopted and supported local Perso-Islamic traditions", and that their art joins Persian, Islamic and Central Asian Turkic elements.

Two crafts stand out in the Met's account. From the second half of the 12th century, workshops in Khurasan, in eastern Iran, inlaid bronze and brass objects with copper, silver and gold, and often wrote on them in an "animated" script whose letters turn into human and animal figures. In Kashan, potters refined two techniques that the Met names lustre and mina'i. The Met adds that the arts of the book were also important, although few examples survive. In building, the courtyard with a large vaulted hall, an iwan, on each of its four sides became the usual plan of a mosque. The Met calls the congregational mosque of Isfahan, enlarged for Sultan Malik Shah, who ruled from 1072 to 1092, the most celebrated Seljuq monument.

The Ilkhanids, 1256 to 1353

The Mongols conquered eastern Iran from 1221, and Genghis Khan's grandson Hülegü took all of Iran and, by 1258, Baghdad. Hülegü, who ruled from 1256 to 1265, took the title Il-Khan, "lesser khan", below the Great Khan in China. The Met says Mongol control of most of Asia created "an environment of tremendous cultural exchange", and that after the Il-Khan Ghazan became a Muslim in 1295, Islamic art flourished again.

In this period the illustrated book became a leading art. The Met says new ideas entered Persian painting, "including an altered and more Chinese depiction of pictorial space", with lotuses, peonies, cloud bands, dragons and phoenixes. Court painters illustrated histories and the Shahnameh. Harvard Art Museums calls the Great Ilkhanid Shahnameh, made in Tabriz, "one of the most complex masterpieces of Persian art". Our page on Chinese influence on Persian painting explains what the painters took from China and what they changed. The Ilkhanids also built. The Met names the summer palace at Takht-e Soleyman, ca. 1275, and calls the Tomb of Uljaitu at Sultaniyya, built 1307 to 1313, the architectural masterpiece of the period.

The Timurids, ca. 1370 to 1507

Timur, known in Europe as Tamerlane, made Samarqand his capital in 1370 and conquered Central Asia, greater Iran and Iraq within thirty-five years. He brought craftsmen from the lands he conquered to Samarqand. His descendants made Herat their capital and a centre of painting. The Met says the Timurid rulers "were sympathetic to Persian culture", commissioned books that were copied and illustrated in their libraries, and that "the Herat school is often regarded as the apogee of Persian painting". The court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, who ruled from 1470 to 1506, was the high point. Its best-known painter was Kamal al-Din Behzad, whom our page on Persian miniature painting describes in detail.

The Met lists the marks of Timurid building: monumental scale, many minarets, tilework in many colours, and large bulb-shaped double domes, as on the Gur-e Amir in Samarqand, Timur's tomb, built ca. 1400 to 1404. Timurid princes also commissioned fine metalwork and jade carving.

The Safavids, 1501 to 1722

Isma'il was crowned in Tabriz in 1501 as the first Safavid shah, and Shi'a Islam became the state religion. His son Tahmasp, who ruled from 1524 to 1576, had trained in painting as a boy. The Met says artists from the older Turkmen and Timurid workshops were brought together at his court and formed a new Safavid style. One of their best-known works is the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, with 258 illustrations. The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto holds ten of its paintings, including The Court of Kayumars, attributed to Sultan Muhammad.

Shah Abbas and Isfahan

Shah Abbas I, who ruled from 1587 to 1629, moved the capital to Isfahan in 1597 to 1598. The Met's essay by Marika Sardar describes the new square, the Maidan-e Shah, with the Shah Mosque, built 1611 to 1666, on its south side, the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah, 1603 to 1619, on the east, and the Ali Qapu audience hall on the west. Abbas increased carpet and textile production in state workshops and settled 300 Chinese potters and their families in Iran to profit from the fashion for Chinese ceramics. The Met says carpet weaving changed from a craft of nomads and villagers into a national industry, with designs drawn by artists of the court workshops.

Painting changed too. The Met says single-page paintings and drawings became more popular than manuscript illustration, partly because merchants and other wealthy city dwellers could now buy art. Reza Abbasi, who lived from ca. 1565 to 1635, brought in new subjects: languid youths, lovers and half-dressed women, which replaced the heroes of the Shahnameh and the Khamsa in the work of many painters. Prints and paintings brought by European traders and envoys taught Persian painters modelling, foreshortening and oil painting. Abbas II added the Chehel Sotun to the royal buildings of Isfahan, a pavilion with large wall paintings of historical and literary subjects. The Met records that Isfahan's great years ended in 1722, when an Afghan tribe in revolt besieged the city.

The Afsharids, Zands and Qajars

After the Safavids, the Met says, life-size oil painting became the new way to show royal power, under the Afsharids (1736 to 1796), the Zands (1750 to 1794) and the Qajars. Portraits of Nader Shah stressed war. The Zand ruler Karim Khan was shown at ease, smoking a huqqa, a water pipe.

The Qajar court

The Met dates the Qajar dynasty 1779 to 1924, while a 1998 Brooklyn Museum exhibition catalogue listed in the Met's references uses 1785 to 1925. Fath-Ali Shah, who ruled from 1797 to 1834, commissioned large numbers of life-size portraits of himself and his sons for his palaces and hunting lodges. The Met names the court painters Mirza Baba and Mihr Ali, and describes the portraits as "icons of power" with dark, rich colours and idealized faces. Official portraits were sent to England, Russia and France. The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha holds a portrait of Fath-Ali Shah dated 1816, 162 by 110 cm, attributed to Mihr Ali. Our page on Qajar painting covers this court art in detail.

New techniques followed. Photography reached Iran in the early 1840s, and the Dar al-Funun, Iran's first institution of higher learning on Western models, opened in 1851 and later taught painting, lithography and photography. The Met says photographs made portrait painters pay closer attention to modelling and shading. Abu'l-Hasan Ghaffari, called Sani al-Mulk, was sent to Paris and Rome to study painting and printmaking, and later edited and illustrated an official newspaper. At the end of the 19th century, large oil paintings of religious subjects were shown to the public for the first time, many of them in coffeehouses. Our page on coffeehouse painting in Iran tells that story.

The 20th century

The Met says Muhammad Ghaffari, called Kamal al-Mulk, who lived from 1852 to 1940, "changed the course of painting in Iran". He studied in Paris, Florence and Rome, and in 1911 he opened Iran's first Academy of Fine Arts, bringing new naturalism and scenes of everyday life into Persian painting.

The Asia Society's exhibition text for Iran Modern says that after the Second World War the leading styles of high art were academic realism and "Safavid revival style miniature painting". Modern art, first as abstraction and cubism, met resistance at first, then came to lead in the 1960s and 1970s. The critic Karim Emami named the Saqqakhaneh movement in 1963, according to the Asia Society, for artists who drew on the objects of Shi'ite folk art. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was buying Iranian and international art in the 1970s. Our history of modern Iranian art from the Saqqakhaneh movement to today follows this period, and our page on famous Persian painters gives the lives of the best-known artists from every period.

Where to see this history

Many works from this history are held in North American museums. The Met holds finds from its own excavations at Nishapur and pages from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp. The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto holds ten paintings from that same Shahnameh. Harvard Art Museums holds a page of the Great Ilkhanid Shahnameh. Our page on where to see Persian art in Canada and the USA lists museums city by city.

The classical tradition in our gallery

The manuscript tradition described above is still practised. Our page for Kamal al-Din Ghotb says he has practised Persian painting for 41 years and works in the classical negargari tradition in oil and gold on paper. His Mi'raj, dated 2026 and 30 by 40 cm, shows the Night Ascension, the subject of the classical Mi'raj-nama manuscripts: a haloed rider on the winged steed Buraq, carried upward through gold clouds by angels. Its product page says more than a hundred figures fill the panel. See the Kamal al-Din Ghotb collection.

Frequently asked questions

What are the main periods of Persian art?

The main periods of Persian art follow the dynasties that ruled Iran: the Achaemenids (550 to 330 BC), the Sasanians (AD 224 to 651), the early Islamic centuries, the Seljuqs, the Ilkhanids (1256 to 1353), the Timurids, the Safavids (1501 to 1722), the Qajars and the modern period. The Metropolitan Museum of Art publishes an essay on each one.

Who built Persepolis?

Persepolis was founded by the Achaemenid king Darius I in 518 BC, according to UNESCO, and was enlarged by his son Xerxes I and his grandson Artaxerxes I. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says the palaces stood on a terrace of 125,000 square metres and were kept up until 330 BC, when Alexander of Macedon looted and burned them.

What do the Apadana reliefs at Persepolis show?

The Apadana reliefs at Persepolis show a royal audience. The Encyclopaedia Iranica describes guards and nobles on one wing of the eastern stairway, many holding hands, and twenty-three delegations bringing gifts on the other, each in its own dress and separated by a cypress tree. A Persian or Median usher leads each delegation toward the king.

What is Sasanian silver?

Sasanian silver is the metalwork of the Sasanian empire, AD 224 to 651, which the Metropolitan Museum of Art calls its best-known objects. The bowls, ewers and plates were hammered into shape and then decorated. From the reign of Shapur II, plates showing the king hunting became a standard royal image and were often sent to other courts as gifts.

What is the earliest known picture of a Shahnameh story?

The earliest known picture of a Shahnameh story is a Sasanian silver-gilt plate showing King Bahram V, called Bahram Gur, with Azadeh, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The plate is centuries older than the Shahnameh itself, which the Aga Khan Museum says Ferdowsi completed in 1010. The Met adds that the story became a popular subject in the art of much later periods.

What pottery was made at Nishapur?

Nishapur pottery is best known for bowls painted with Arabic writing in dark slip on a white ground. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a 10th-century example 45.7 cm across, inscribed "Planning before work protects you from regret; prosperity and peace". The Met excavated at Nishapur in the 1930s and 1940s, and more than 5,000 objects entered its collection.

What did the Seljuqs add to Persian art?

The Seljuqs, who ruled Iran from ca. 1040 to 1157, are known for bronze and brass inlaid with copper, silver and gold, for writing whose letters turn into people and animals, and for the lustre and mina'i pottery of Kashan. The Metropolitan Museum of Art adds that the mosque plan of a courtyard with four vaulted halls became common in their time.

Why is the Herat school of painting so admired?

The Herat school of painting is admired because the Timurid princes of Herat gathered artists and scholars in their libraries and commissioned illustrated books of the highest quality. The Metropolitan Museum of Art says the Herat school "is often regarded as the apogee of Persian painting". Its peak came at the court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, who ruled from 1470 to 1506.

What did Shah Abbas build in Isfahan?

Shah Abbas I built a new city beside old Isfahan after moving his capital there in 1597 to 1598. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes a two-kilometre bazaar leading to the Maidan-e Shah square, with the Shah Mosque, the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah and the Ali Qapu audience hall on its sides, and a long avenue lined with gardens and palaces called the Chahar Bagh.

When did oil painting become the court art of Iran?

Oil painting became the main court art of Iran in the 18th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art says life-size oil painting became the new way to express royal identity under the Afsharids, the Zands and the Qajars. Fath-Ali Shah, who ruled from 1797 to 1834, commissioned large numbers of life-size portraits of himself and his sons.

Who opened Iran's first academy of fine arts?

Muhammad Ghaffari, known as Kamal al-Mulk, opened Iran's first Academy of Fine Arts in 1911, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met gives his dates as 1852 to 1940, says he studied in Paris, Florence and Rome, and credits him with bringing new naturalism and scenes of everyday life into painting in Iran.

References

1. The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550 to 330 B.C.). Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2004; Internet Archive copy of 6 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The founding of the empire, its size, Darius I's building at Susa and Persepolis, and the subjects of the Persepolis reliefs.
2. Persepolis. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Inscribed 1979; Internet Archive copy of 31 December 2025. Accessed 27 September 2026. The founding in 518 BC, the builders, the terrace and the double-bull capitals.
3. PERSEPOLIS. Alireza Shapur Shahbazi, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 August 2009, last updated 1 August 2016; Internet Archive copy of 22 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The name Takht-e Jamshid, the terrace, the burning in 330 BC, the Apadana and the stairway reliefs.
4. The Sasanian Empire (224 to 651 A.D.). Blair Fowlkes-Childs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2003, last updated April 2016; Internet Archive copy of 15 March 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Sasanian history, silver, the Bahram Gur plate, rock reliefs, stucco and the spread of Sasanian style.
5. Rare Coins from Nishapur. Sheila Canby and Abdullah Ghouchani, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2019; Internet Archive copy of 13 February 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Samanids, Nishapur's crafts and the Met's excavations there.
6. Bowl with Arabic Inscription, 65.106.2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Undated; Internet Archive copy of 13 June 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The date, place, technique, size and inscription of the Nishapur bowl.
7. CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xii. Mutual Influences in Painting. Toh Sugimura, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 1991; Internet Archive copy of 7 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Chinese influence on early Islamic ceramics and its absence from painting before the Ilkhanids.
8. The Art of the Seljuqs of Iran (ca. 1040 to 1157). Suzan Yalman, based on work by Linda Komaroff, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2001; Internet Archive copy of 20 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Seljuq history, inlaid metalwork, Kashan pottery and architecture.
9. The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256 to 1353). Suzan Yalman, based on work by Linda Komaroff, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2001; Internet Archive copy of 20 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Mongol conquest, the arts of the book, the new Chinese motifs and Ilkhanid buildings.
10. Bahram Gur Fights the Horned Wolf, illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Great Ilkhanid Shahnama, 1960.190. Harvard Art Museums. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The description of the Great Ilkhanid Shahnameh.
11. The Art of the Timurid Period (ca. 1370 to 1507). Suzan Yalman, based on work by Linda Komaroff, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2002; Internet Archive copy of 11 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Timur, Herat, the Herat school and Timurid architecture.
12. The Art of the Safavids before 1600. Suzan Yalman, based on work by Linda Komaroff, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2002; Internet Archive copy of 18 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Shah Isma'il, Shah Tahmasp, the new Safavid style and the move to Isfahan.
13. Shah Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan. Marika Sardar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2003; Internet Archive copy of 16 March 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Maidan-e Shah and its buildings, the Chinese potters and the end of Isfahan's great years in 1722.
14. The Arts of Iran, 1600 to 1800. Marika Sardar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2003; Internet Archive copy of 2 March 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Reza Abbasi, carpets as an industry, European prints, single-page painting and the oil portraits of the Afsharids and Zands.
15. Nineteenth-Century Iran: Art and the Advent of Modernity. Maryam Ekhtiar and Marika Sardar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2004; Internet Archive copy of 18 November 2025. Accessed 27 September 2026. Qajar portraits, Mihr Ali, the Dar al-Funun, photography, Sani al-Mulk, Kamal al-Mulk and the religious paintings shown in coffeehouses.
16. The Court of Kayumars, AKM165. Aga Khan Museum. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The 258 illustrations of the Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh, the ten held in Toronto, and the completion of the Shahnameh in 1010.
17. Portrait of Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar. Qatar Museums, Museum of Islamic Art. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The date, size and attribution to Mihr Ali of the portrait.
18. Iran Modern. Asia Society Museum. Published 2013; Internet Archive copy of 15 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The styles of Iranian art after the Second World War, the naming of the Saqqakhaneh movement and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
19. Kamal al-Din Ghotb. VanArtHub. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The gallery's description of his training and technique.
20. Mi'raj, Original Persian Miniature by Kamal al-Din Ghotb. VanArtHub. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The subject, size, year and figures of the painting.

Checked 27 September 2026. If something here is out of date, write to us and we will correct it.