SULTANATE INDIA, 15TH CENTURY

Folios from this manuscript are attributed to Sultanate India based on the style of the figures, as well as similarities with the script of the late fifteenth century Ni’mat-nama in the British Library (IO Islamic 149). The folios have always been catalogued as a Khusraw-nama, although one folio sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2023, lot 58, was actually from a Asrar-nama indicating the original manuscript may in fact have been a compendium of 'Attar's poetry. The square format of the painting and the style of the figures is similar to four Indian Shahnama illustrations, dated to the second quarter of the fifteenth century, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC (S1986.144; S1986.145, and S1968.146). The manuscript from which this comes has occasionally historically been attributed to Southern Iran. This is a result of the fact that the Delhi Sultans encouraged artists from Tabriz, Shiraz, or Herat to move South and settle in new ateliers on the Indian subcontinent, encouraging a period of artistic exchange over the Indus river which would culminate in the age of the Great Mughals.

Three leaves from this manuscript sold as part of the Stuart Cary Welch collection, Sotheby’s London, 12 December 1972, lots 175-77. Further folios sold at Sotheby’s London, 28 April 2004, lot 50 and 9 October 2013, lot 211. Others sold at Bonham’s London, 17 September 2014, lot 184 and in these Rooms, 16 October 1980, lot 55; 13 April 2010, lot 70; and 6 October 2011, lot 118 and more recently, 27 April 2023, lots 58 and 59.