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160 PERSIAN MINIATURES
have Mongol affinities : but in M. Anet's pic-
and academic
ture, though the rather finicking
drawing of the tree shows that already under
the early Timourids the full Persian style was
developed, there are yet to be found traces
of a monumental design that had almost
disappeared by the end of the fifteenth
century.
The work here illustrated is too " descriptive
" " "
and not sufficiently monumental to
be assigned to the Timourid age, and so I give
it to the late fifteenth century, to those
delicious years when the old tradition, though
weakened, had not been smothered under the
scenic delicacies brought into fashion by
Behzad. If the Timourid age is to be dubbed
the Persian quattrocento, Mr. Ruck's man will
pass muster as the counterpart of some artist
older than Raphael, who worked independently
of the young prodigy unaffected by his
ultimately disastrous inventions.
From an album, also in the possession of
Mr. Arthur Ruck, comes a drawing signed by
Behzad and reproduced on Plate II, c. On
the genuineness of the signature I cannot
pretend to an opinion, but there seem to be
no solid grounds for disputing it. The work
itself is characteristic enough. It is accom-
plished and tasteful; it is also thin in quality
and the forms are indifferently co-ordinated.