NASRID SPAIN, 15TH CENTURY

This illuminated manuscript is copied on fine Spanish paper which shows very regular chain and laid lines. The colophon is exquisitely illuminated and arranged as a large rectangular frame encompassing a polychrome roundel. The gold-yellow script is characteristic of Nasrid calligraphy with fleshy and loosely curving letters. A medallion carved in stucco on the Hall of the Two Sisters at the Alhambra offers a close comparable example (Arte Islamico en Granada, Granada, op.coll., 1995, ill.6, p.104). The inscription is carved over a similar ground of palmettes within a cusped medallion. These palmettes are particularly common in the Nasrid decorative repertoire and are found on stucco as well as wood or ceramic. See for instance 14th century stucco panels from the Generalife which are now in the Museo de la Alhambra, Granada (R.E. 2062) in which the spandrels closely relates to our illumination. A very good example is offered by a well-known lustre pottery tile, the ‘Fortuny’ tile, dated to the beginning of the 15th century and which is now in Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid. There the ground is worked with large Islamic split-palmettes combined with leafy palmettes and six-petalled rosettes that are reminiscent of motifs used in the neighbouring Christian kingdoms – they commonly appear on Manises pottery. There is an obviously similarity of feel between the ‘Fortuny’ tile and the illumination of our colophon page (Jerryllin D. Dodds, ed., Al-Andalus, The Art of Islamic Spain, New York, 1992, cat.113, p.360).


Two other copies of this work dated January 1240 and 29 September 1332 are in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, see A. Arberry, A Handlist of the Arab Manuscripts, vols. II and VII, Dublin, 1956 and 1964, nos. 3415 and 5337 respectively. Another copy of this work is in the University of Tokyo, Institute of Oriental Culture, Ms.145 [2402]. See Brockelmann, GAL, I, 361; Suppl., I, 613.