The ‘Abd Al-A'Imma Astrolabe Forgeries

We reject the hypothesis that 'Abd al-A'imma was the name of a workshop rather than of a specific person. Why would there be such a complex pattern of collaborations between the named astrolabists of the Isfahan school and 'Abd al-A'imma if the latter were simply the name of a workshop? As we shall show, two distinct styles are associated with 'Abd al-A'imma's name. The workshop hypothesis fails to explain why two, and only two, such distinctive styles emerged. The dates for the Isfahan school are deduced from dated astrolabes mentioned in Mayer's L. A. Islamic astrolabists and their works (Geneva, 1956). In this paper, we follow Mayer's numeral notation. Note that for 'Abd al-A'imma, VIII = X, XIII = XVI; and XXIX-XXXI are included in the additions near the end. XXXII is described in Mayer's supplement in Ettinghausen Richard (ed.), Aus der Welt der Islamischen Kunst (Berlin, 1959), 293–296.

We wish to thank Dr Francis Maddison, Curator of the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, for access to the Museum's incomparable collection of astrolabe photographs; in this way we could examine, for example, the first instrument of 'Abd al-A'imma the Elder, the present location of which was unknown to us. We also wish to thank Alain Brieux, who supplied the photographs of the Landau and Georges Charliat astrolabes, and Roderick and Marjorie Webster for photographs of the Chicago astrolabes. Unfortunately we have not yet had an opportunity to examine the second astrolabe of 'Abd al-A'imma the Elder, which is in the estate of the late E. S. David in Forest Hills, New York.

Price D. J. , “An International Checklist of Astrolabes”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, 32–33 (1955), 243–263, 363–381. Price's numbers below 1000 correspond to the Gunther numbers (see ref. 6).

Davis C. P. , “Muhammedan Metal Work”, Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St Louis (October 1926), 53.

Maistrov L. E. , Nautnye Pribori [Scientific Instruments], (Moscow, 1968), 44, plates 85–88.

Gunther R. T. , The astrolabes of the world (Oxford, 1932), i, 146–7.

Described but unfortunately not illustrated in Sédillot L. A. , “Description d'un astrolabe construit par Abd-ul-Aima, ingénieur et astronome persan”, Annales de l'Observatoire Impérial de Paris, Mémoires, ix (1868), 164–171.

Besides examining the actual instruments in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, the first author inspected the photographs of some additional 'Abd al-A'imma astrolabes in other collections. Although most of these examples fell unambiguously into the stylistic patterns described in the text, two exceptions can be noted. 'Abd al-A'imma XXIII, in the collection of Claudius Côte, Lyon, is stylistically similar to the good astrolabes in broad outline, but the details are worrisome and are in several instances wrong, or at least crude by 'Abd al-A'imma's standards. This example can perhaps be called a copy, but not a forgery. Dr Maddison concurs that this work is anomalous and suggests as one possibility that 'Abd al-A'imma's name was added to another maker's astrolabe. 'Abd al-A'imma X, now in the Musée Alaoui but formerly in the Meyerhof collection (= VIII), has not been made with the sure hand characteristic of 'Abd al-A'imma; there are many false lines and a peculiar spill of a legend into the trigonometric grid in the upper left quadrant on the verso. Concerning this instrument, we must suspend judgement.

We exclude from this list 'Abd al-A'imma XXX in the collection of the Buffalo Society of National Sciences because it is clearly a crude imitation, not even worthy of consideration in this curious group of decorative forgeries.

Mayer L. A. , “An Astrolabe by 'Abd al-A'imma”, Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, xiv, 1 (1956), 2–6. Mayer did not realize that the astrolabe was a forgery and apparently did not even notice any of its deficiences.

Weibel Coulin Adele , “A Persian Astrolabe”, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, xxv (1946), 59–61.

Aga-Oğlu Mehmet , “Two Astrolabes of the Late Safawid Period”, Bulletin of the [Boston] Museum of Fine Arts, xlv (1947), 79–84. Aga-Oğlu passed over the principal deficiences in the astrolabe.

Illustrated in the Sotheby sale catalogue for 19 December 1966, item 74, sold to E. Mannheimer for £350.

On a stereographic projection, the ratio of the distances from the central pivot to the nearest and farthest points of the ecliptic is necessarily 1:2·33—in Table 2 we designate this as the ecliptic projection ratio.

Gunther R. T. , op. cit.

Michel Henri , Traité de l'astrolabe (Paris, 1947).

[ Maddison F. R. ], A supplement to a catalogue of scientific instruments in the collection of J. A. Billmeir (Oxford, 1957).

Illustrated by Gingerich Owen , “Rara Astronomica”, Harvard Library Bulletin, xix (1971), Plate IV, 117–139.

Aga-Oğlu , op. cit., noticed that the throne verse was corrupt on the Boston astrolabe, but did not recognize its source.

Smith Murdoch R. , Persian art (London, 1876), 36; also quoted by Aga-Oğlu, op. cit.

Translated from Kržiž A. , “Das persisch-arabische Astrolabium des Ab-dul Aimeh”, Das Weltall, v (1905), 121–130, 144–152.