SIGNED HASSAN 'ALI, SAFAVID IRAN, CIRCA 1575

This elegantly decorated folio relates closely to eight from two manuscripts of Jami in the Chester Beatty Library. The more finely decorated are five leaves from a copy of Jami’s Salman wa Absal. The scrolls are decorated with various waq-waq motifs including numerous human faces. Three leaves from Jami’s Subhat al-Ahrar are similarly illuminated but the scrolls, like ours, are simply decorated with leaves and palmettes. The figures within the marginal medallions show musicians, half-length figures and other seated figures depicted frontally in a similar manner to those visible in our page. They are all painted in the simplified form of the metropolitan Qazvin style practiced circa 1565-85 (M. Minovi, B.W. Robinson et.al, The Chester Beatty Library, A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures, Dublin, 1960, cat. 209 and 210). A closely related bifolio sold in these Rooms, 5 October 2010, lot 227. Like ours, one of those folios also bore the name of the same scribe, or artist, Hassan ‘Ali.