Historical period

Timurid

تیموری

1370–1507 · Court ateliers in Herat refine manuscript painting, illumination and bookbinding into a coherent, highly disciplined school.

Key developments

HeratSamarkandShiraz

Craft	Category	In brief
Persian miniature	Painting	The Iranian tradition of small-scale painting made for manuscripts and albums, built from fine line, flat luminous colour and layered spatial convention rather than single-point perspective.
Nasta'liq calligraphy	Calligraphy	A hanging cursive script developed in Iran for Persian poetry, distinguished by its sloping baseline, sharply contrasted thick and thin strokes, and sweeping final letters.
Moarraq tile mosaic	Ceramics	A technique of architectural revetment in which monochrome glazed tiles are cut into small individual pieces to a template and set together, glaze face down, into a mortar bed to form complex polychrome patterns and inscriptions.
Inlaid metalwork	Metalwork	Decoration of brass, bronze or steel vessels by setting silver, copper or gold into cut recesses, producing figurative scenes, inscriptions and ornament in contrasting colour.
Blue-and-white ceramics	Ceramics	Stonepaste wares painted in cobalt blue under a clear glaze, produced in Iran with strong dialogue with Chinese porcelain, especially in the Timurid and Safavid periods.
Illumination (Tazhib)	Book arts	The decoration of manuscript pages and album leaves with gold and coloured pigments in geometric and floral designs framing text or painting.

Period dates follow conventional scholarly ranges. Attributing a single object to a period is often uncertain; this page is under review.