Alexander visits the Ka'ba

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Alexander visits the Ka'ba
Shiraz, 16th century

gouache heightened with gold on paper, showing the black stone in the Haram at Mecca with the gold-embroidered black cover being drawn back by a boy for Alexander to view, a group of men watch and pray within the precincts of the mosque while white-clothed pilgrims perform their devotions, in the rocky ground beyond the mosque further people can be seen, a line of black nasta'liq below, orange and gold margins between black rules, blue outer rule, on cream leaf with gold ruled outer margin, (some flaking, creasing and splits, very small areas of retouching), verso with 21ll. of black nasta'liq in four columns with illuminated divisons, a heading across two columns in white on an illuminated panel, (a few repairs), mounted
miniature 8¾ x 6¼in. (22.3 x 15.9cm.)

Lot Essay

Two very similar scenes also from 16th century Shiraz have been published in Sotheby's Oriental Manuscipts and Miniatures, London 12 October 1990, lot 144 and 28 April 1993, lot 25. A third, of slightly different composition, is in the Chester Beatty Library (The Chester Beatty Library, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, Dublin 1962, Vol.III, no.222, p.3)

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