DEDICATED TO NASIR AL-DIN SHAH, SIGNED 'ABD AL-HUSAYN AL-ISFAHANI, QAJAR IRAN, DATED AH 1275/1858-59 AD

Details

SHAYKH MUSLIH AL-DIN SA'ADI (D.1292): KULLIYAT
DEDICATED TO NASIR AL-DIN SHAH, SIGNED 'ABD AL-HUSAYN AL-ISFAHANI, QAJAR IRAN, DATED AH 1275/1858-59 AD
Persian manuscript on gold-sprinkled burnished paper, 292ff., plus three flyleaves, each folio with 18ll. of black nasta'liq in two columns with double gold intercolumnar rules, titles in red nasta'liq, some within gold and polychrome illuminated panels, surrounded by black nasta'liq written on the diagonal, within gold and polychrome rules, catchwords, five fully illuminated bifolios, the illuminated closing bifolio with a dedication to Nasir al-Din Shah in gold thuluth, colophon signed and dated, lacquer binding with floral decoration, the doublures lacquered with gold floral scrolls on red ground
Text panel 6 x 3 1/4in. (15.2 x 8.2cm.); folio 7 7/8 x 4 7/8in. (20 x 12.2cm.)

Provenance

Mahmud Jam (1960), Prime Minister under Reza Shah from 1935-39
Sotheby's, London, 24 April 2013, lot 25

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Lot Essay

The scribe of this Kulliyat is ‘Abd al-Husayn Isfahani, known as ‘Shikasteh-Nevis’, ‘writer of Shikasteh’. The son of Aqa Muhammad Isfahani, he was one of the outstanding shikasteh calligraphers of the period and was active in the years AH 1230-1275/1814-1859 AD. Another Kulliyat of Sa‘di copied by him, dated AH 1251/1835-36 AD, was in the collection of Sayyid Nasrollah Taqvi Akhavi (see Jalal al-Din Huma’i, History of Isfahan: Arts and Artists, Tehran 1996, pp. 162-63).

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