A fine Safavid brass astrolabe, signed by Muhammed Husayn al-Yazdi ibn Muhammad Baqir, decorated by Ibn Muhamad Amir, Muhammed Mahdi al-Yazdi, Persia, dated 1057 AH/1647-48 AD

This elegant astrolabe was made by two of the leading instrument-makers of Safavid Iran in the mid-seventeenth century: Muhammad Husayn al-Yazdi ibn Muhammad Baqir (the maker) and Muhammad Mahdi al-Yazdi ibn Muhamad Amir (the decorator). 

The names of the makers of this fine astrolabe are recorded on the reverse of the mater: "made by (sana'ahu) ibn Muhammad Baqir, Muhammed Husayn al-Yazdi ", it also bears a date in abjad numerals (Gh-N-Z) which corresponds to 1057 hijri. Below there is a cartouche with the statement that the piece was "decorated by (naqqashahu) ibn Muhamad Amir, Muhammed Mahdi al-Yazdi."

Both these men are well-known members of the prolific school of instrument-making that flourished in seventeenth-century Isfahan and worked together. Their names are also recorded in an astrolabe made for Imam Mirza Razi al-Din Muhammad Husayni al-Mawsawi, sold in these rooms, 31 March 2021, lot 67.

Muhammad Husayn made one of three surviving world-maps engraved on circular brass plates that caught the attention of the scholarly world some twenty years ago. The maker's father, Muhammad Baqir al-Yazdi, was the leading mathematician of Safavid Iran who wrote many major treatises on astronomy and science and taught a number of the most prolific instrument makers of the Safavid period (see D.A. King, World-maps for finding the direction and distance to Mecca, Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science, Leiden, 1999, p.131). For more on Muhammad Husayn see ibid, pp.255-6. For more information on the decorator, Muhammad Mahdi al-Yazdi, see L.A. Mayer, Islamic Astrolabists and their Works, Geneva, 1956, pp.70-71).

An astrolabe by Muhammad Husayn Baqir al-Yazdi, dated 1057 AH/1647-48 AD, was sold in these rooms, 24 October 2007, lot 188. An astrolabe signed by Muhammad Mahdi al-Yazdi, dated 1060 AH/1650-51 AD, is in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, inv. no.SCI161 (F. Maddison and E. Savage-Smith, Science, Tools & Magic, London, 1997, pp.250-1, no.144). A further comparable astrolabe by Muhammad Mehdi al-Yazdi is in the Museum of History of Science in Oxford (inv. no.46886), and another was sold in these rooms, 6 October 2010, lot 150.