Dr Rachel Alban

Associate Lecturer

At the end of the Jalayerid period, a new style of manuscript painting emerged that both contemporary viewers and modern scholars alike have seen as wonderous in its sight-defying minutiae and intricacy. My research traced this canonical and influential small-scale mode from the later manuscripts of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir, through the Timurid period, to the Haft Owrang of Ibrahim Mirza in 1556. While the so-called 鈥渃lassical style鈥 of Persian painting has attracted extensive scholarly attention, the visual mechanisms underpinning these dazzling surfaces have never been fully expounded. Through the lens of size and scale, my dissertation adopted a new methodological perspective, turning attention to material matters of making and manipulating illustrated manuscripts, while also tapping into a wider cultural and intellectual context that valorised artistic minutiae and subtle discernment. A corpus of physical and relative measurements established this canonical style more revealingly as a 鈥渕iniaturised mode鈥, involving dramatically diminished pictorial scale, a detail-oriented aesthetic and miniaturised marks of making. In highlighting a predilection for pictorial minutiae, this research identified a foundational aspect of Persian painting in this period, while also presenting miniaturisation as a meaningful intellectual and ontological visual strategy that evoked the most esteemed kinds of image, shaped narrative interpretation and activated the very process of looking.

Dr Rachel Alban
Email

Education

PhD, 91影视 (2019-2026): Miniaturisation in Persian Painting, 1396-1556

MA by Research, History of Art, University of York (2018-2019):聽The Significance of Size and Scale in the Appeal of the Tudor Portrait Miniature

BA Hons, English Language and Literature, University of Oxford (2009-2012)

Research Interests

  • Size and scale: particularly pictorial scale and miniaturisation
  • Text-image relationships: illustration and questions of 鈥榚xtra-textuality鈥
  • Manuscript studies and intra-folio relationships between calligraphy, illumination and paintings
  • Questions of framing and reframing: ruled borders, marginalia, illuminations, prefaces, albums
  • Ontology of images, surfaces and ornamentation in Perso-Islamic culture
  • Islamic and Persian notions of wonderment, particularly in relation to artistic discourses

Journal Articles and Conference Papers

Articles:

鈥楾he Edge of Artifice: The 厂丑腻丑苍腻尘别丑 of Shah Tahm膩sp and Interrogating the Edge in Early Safavid Manuscript Painting,鈥 Immediations 21 (2024)

鈥極n the Surface: The Ontological Implications of Miniaturisation and Surface Quality in Timurid Manuscript Paintings鈥 (in progress)

Conference Papers:

  • 鈥楳iniature Resistance: Timurid and Safavid Manuscript Paintings and Defying Intelligible Dimensions鈥 (“Out of Scale鈥 Conference, Courtauld, June 2025)
  • 鈥極n the Surface: The Ontological Implications of Polished Surfaces and Miniaturised Marks of Making, from the Manuscript Paintings of Prince Baysunghur and Beyond鈥 (Annual Postgraduate Symposium, Courtauld, May 2025)
  • 鈥楶icturing the invisible: The 鈥淚llustration鈥 of Persian Romance and Didactic Poetry in Late Timurid and Early Safavid Manuscripts鈥 ( 鈥榃ord and Image鈥 Symposium, Courtauld, June 2024)
  • ‘Framing in Detail: Small-scale Illumination Design as Cognitive Framing in late Timurid and early Safavid Literary Manuscripts’ (Courtauld Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, 2022)
  • ‘Miniaturisation and the Production of Wonder in 15th and 16th century Persian Painting’ (Courtauld Second Year Symposium, 2021)
  • ‘The Superficial Significance of Execution in Timurid Manuscript Painting’ (Yale Single Slide Sohbat, 2021)
  • ‘Miniaturisation in Persian Painting: Renewing our Appreciation of Size, Scale and Materiality in a Digital Age’ (CHASE Encounters 2020)
  • 鈥楧iscovering the Monumental in the Miniature: The Importance of Scale in Tudor Portrait Miniatures鈥 (York University, 2019)

Teaching and Other Activities

Teaching:

  • Associate Lecture: Mongol Bling (2026-2027)
  • Guest Lecturer, SOAS (2025)
  • Graduate Diploma Teaching Assistant: Foundations course (Spring 2022)
  • Teaching Assistant for 91影视 Summer University (2020)

Other

  • Shortlisted BBC New Generation Thinker 2024
  • Associate Editor of 91影视鈥檚 Immediations Journal, 2023
  • Co-organiser of Courtauld’s Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium: ‘God is in the Details – The Art of Detail in the Middle Ages’ (2022)
  • Co-organiser of Student Work in Progress Seminars (Academic year 2020-21)

Citations