Art History

The Lotus and the Dragon: How Chinese Visual Motifs Came to Persia

Close ties between the Yuan and Ilkhanid Mongol courts greatly impacted Persian ceramics, textiles and painting

River Landscape with Bare Trees, from Jami’ al-Tawarikh. Iran, ?Tabriz. Early 14th century. Watercolours on paper. 19.2 x 28.1 cm. Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Orientabteilung, Diez A., fol. 71, p10). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

The Ilkhanids were a Mongol dynasty that reigned from 1256–1353 in the areas covering modern Iran, Iraq, southern Russia, western Afghanistan and eastern Turkey. The new Mongol empire brought to an end the Arab-centred dominance of the region since the fall of the Sasanians, reinvigorating Persian culture and disseminating visual influences between the East and West.

The Mongol invasion of the 1220s had caused great upheaval and bloodshed — sparing craftsmen due to their value. However, the size of the Mongol empire by the mid-1200s made it virtually ungovernable by a single person and so the empire dissolved into four khanates following Khubilai’s seizing of power in Mongolia and north China. Ruling from 1260–94, Khubilai was — at least in theory — the ‘Great Khan’, with his empire — the Yuan — being the senior of the khanates. This was recognised by Khubilai’s elder brother Hulagu (r. 1256–65), who ruled Persia, giving his dynasty the name of the Ilkhanids, or ‘sub-khan’. The Chagatai khanate of Central Asia and the Golden Horde of Russia did not recognise Khubilai as the Great…