.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The Khavarannama is a long versified epic written in the style of the Shahnama detailing the exploits, many of which are fantastical, of the Prophet’s uncle `Ali and his companions. Composed by Mawlana Muhammad ibn Husam al-Din, the link to Firdawsi is very clearly demonstrated in this copy in a painting now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which shows the author meeting the elderly bearded Firdawsi (Maryam Ekhtiar, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby and Navina Najat Haidar, Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2011, no.125A, pp.185-6).
This painting come from a magnificent very large manuscript the majority of which is now in the Golestan Palace Library, Tehran (Masterpieces of Persian Painting, exhibition catalogue, Tehran, 2005, pp.77-83). The manuscript, discovered by Dr. Richard N Frye of Harvard around 1952, originally contained 155 paintings. Forty illustrations were separated from it before it was sold to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Tehran from where it has now gone to the Golestan. The other paintings have been sold into Western Collections, the vast majority in America. All the 115 remaining Golestan illustrations are available on the web, incorrectly labelled as being in the Astan-e Quds, Mashhad (https://fedeshk.persiangig.com/.eoKsckdif3/document/khavarname.pdf)
Ten paintings are in the Chester Beatty Library (A. J. Arberry, B. W. Robinson, E. Blochet and J. V. S. Wilkinson, The Chester Beatty Library, A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, Dublin, 1962, n.293, pp.60-62). The Dublin catalogue entry by Wilkinson notes that the colophon in Tehran is dated in words AH 854 (1450 AD) but that the paintings must have been added a few decades later. Half of the Chester Beatty paintings are signed kamtarin-i bandagan Farhad and dated AH 881 (1476-7 AD). This information is repeated in the 1976 Hayward Gallery exhibition catalogue where two further paintings from the Tehran manuscript were exhibited (The Arts of Islam, London, 1976, no.574, p.346). A year later B.W. Robinson called the colophon in the Tehran manuscript “suspicious” and it has not been referred to as authentic since then (B. W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting from Collections in the British Isles, exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1967, no.125, pp.95-6). A fuller study, in Farsi, was made of the manuscript by Yahya Zoka (“Khawaran Nama”, in Honar wa Mardom, no.20, Khordad 1343 (May 1964)). The 2005 Tehran catalogue notes nothing about the colophon of the original manuscript but repeats that the paintings signed by Farhad are dated between AH 881 and AH 892 (1476-86 AD). There are a number of further publications of individual paintings from the manuscript and brief discussions of the manuscript itself detailed in the publications already cited.
The present painting displays many of the features that are associated with classic Aq-Qoyonlu painting, but are larger in scale. Many of them display a greater energy than is normally found in painting of the period with a brilliant colour scheme, as seen in particular in this dancing scene. Some explode through the margins and have a very immediate if slightly provincial vigour. As noted by B. W. Robinson in the 1967 catalogue “The artist Farhad is otherwise unknown but he seems to have been the leading figure in developing the Turkman style, and the production of manuscripts illustrated in this style increased enormously after his contributions to this Khawaran Nama” (B. W. Robinson, op.cit., 1967, p.96).
This painting come from a magnificent very large manuscript the majority of which is now in the Golestan Palace Library, Tehran (Masterpieces of Persian Painting, exhibition catalogue, Tehran, 2005, pp.77-83). The manuscript, discovered by Dr. Richard N Frye of Harvard around 1952, originally contained 155 paintings. Forty illustrations were separated from it before it was sold to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Tehran from where it has now gone to the Golestan. The other paintings have been sold into Western Collections, the vast majority in America. All the 115 remaining Golestan illustrations are available on the web, incorrectly labelled as being in the Astan-e Quds, Mashhad (https://fedeshk.persiangig.com/.eoKsckdif3/document/khavarname.pdf)
Ten paintings are in the Chester Beatty Library (A. J. Arberry, B. W. Robinson, E. Blochet and J. V. S. Wilkinson, The Chester Beatty Library, A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, Dublin, 1962, n.293, pp.60-62). The Dublin catalogue entry by Wilkinson notes that the colophon in Tehran is dated in words AH 854 (1450 AD) but that the paintings must have been added a few decades later. Half of the Chester Beatty paintings are signed kamtarin-i bandagan Farhad and dated AH 881 (1476-7 AD). This information is repeated in the 1976 Hayward Gallery exhibition catalogue where two further paintings from the Tehran manuscript were exhibited (The Arts of Islam, London, 1976, no.574, p.346). A year later B.W. Robinson called the colophon in the Tehran manuscript “suspicious” and it has not been referred to as authentic since then (B. W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting from Collections in the British Isles, exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1967, no.125, pp.95-6). A fuller study, in Farsi, was made of the manuscript by Yahya Zoka (“Khawaran Nama”, in Honar wa Mardom, no.20, Khordad 1343 (May 1964)). The 2005 Tehran catalogue notes nothing about the colophon of the original manuscript but repeats that the paintings signed by Farhad are dated between AH 881 and AH 892 (1476-86 AD). There are a number of further publications of individual paintings from the manuscript and brief discussions of the manuscript itself detailed in the publications already cited.
The present painting displays many of the features that are associated with classic Aq-Qoyonlu painting, but are larger in scale. Many of them display a greater energy than is normally found in painting of the period with a brilliant colour scheme, as seen in particular in this dancing scene. Some explode through the margins and have a very immediate if slightly provincial vigour. As noted by B. W. Robinson in the 1967 catalogue “The artist Farhad is otherwise unknown but he seems to have been the leading figure in developing the Turkman style, and the production of manuscripts illustrated in this style increased enormously after his contributions to this Khawaran Nama” (B. W. Robinson, op.cit., 1967, p.96).