.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This folio originates from a dispersed copy of the Gulistan of Sa’di which had borders lavishly illuminated with a ‘fantastic forest’ by Sultan Muhammad, the great master of Shah Tahmasp’s atelier. The Keir Collection has three folios from the same manuscript (Stuart Cary Welch, Wonders of the Age, exhibition catalogue, Harvard, 1979, nos. 45 and 46, pp.130-31). Not only are the size, the style and the format of calligraphy the same, but the illumination of the borders shares the same vivacity and sense of movement. Welch writes that with their spirited brushwork and inventive compositions, they were influenced by the 15th century Turkman designs that formed part of Shah Isma'il's booty following the conquest of Tabriz in 1502 (Welch, op. cit., p. 131).
It is possible that several artists worked on the borders of this manuscript – either contemporaneously with Sultan Muhammad or later, when the text of the incomplete original manuscript, which was attributed in 1976 to Sultan ‘Ali Mashhadi by B.W. Robinson (B.W. Robinson (ed.), Islamic Painting and Arts of the Book, London, 1976, no.220-222, pp.181-182), was completed by Mir ‘Imad al-Hassani in the late 16th century. The colophon of the manuscript, which is signed Mir ‘Imad and dated AH 1004/1595 AD was part of a small section of thirteen folios that sold at Sotheby’s, 12 October 1990, lot 255. The leopard and sinewy dragon here however are of a quality familiar in the best of the pages and thus an attribution to Sultan Muhammad is possible.
F.R. Martin writes that the manuscript from which the borders were removed was acquired by the German art historian Philipp Walter Schulz in Iran in the early 20th century. A folio belonging to Schultz was exhibited in the Meisterwerken Muhammadanische Kunst (F.Sarre and F.R.Martin, Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst in München 1910, London, 1985, pl.31). F.R. Martin also publishes two as being in his own collection in The Miniature Painting of Persia, India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century, vol.II, London, 1912, pls.250-251). This implies that the manuscript was already separated by this time. A border from the same manuscript, also in the Keir Collection is published in L'Étrange et le Merveilleux en terres d'Islam (exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2001, p 106, no. 71). Another is in the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin (K2019m, 7 (10.273a); Jens Kröger and Désirée Heiden Islamische Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen, exhibition catalogue, no. 166, p. 208). A further border (although it now surrounds a miniature by Reza 'Abbasi as opposed to a page from Sa'di's Gulistan), is published by Abolala Soudavar (Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, no. 105, p. 267). A gold border from the manuscript was sold in these Rooms, 31 March 2009, lot 179. Others were in the collection of Stuart Cary Welch, sold at Sotheby’s, 6 April 2011, lots 74, 75 and 76.
It is possible that several artists worked on the borders of this manuscript – either contemporaneously with Sultan Muhammad or later, when the text of the incomplete original manuscript, which was attributed in 1976 to Sultan ‘Ali Mashhadi by B.W. Robinson (B.W. Robinson (ed.), Islamic Painting and Arts of the Book, London, 1976, no.220-222, pp.181-182), was completed by Mir ‘Imad al-Hassani in the late 16th century. The colophon of the manuscript, which is signed Mir ‘Imad and dated AH 1004/1595 AD was part of a small section of thirteen folios that sold at Sotheby’s, 12 October 1990, lot 255. The leopard and sinewy dragon here however are of a quality familiar in the best of the pages and thus an attribution to Sultan Muhammad is possible.
F.R. Martin writes that the manuscript from which the borders were removed was acquired by the German art historian Philipp Walter Schulz in Iran in the early 20th century. A folio belonging to Schultz was exhibited in the Meisterwerken Muhammadanische Kunst (F.Sarre and F.R.Martin, Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst in München 1910, London, 1985, pl.31). F.R. Martin also publishes two as being in his own collection in The Miniature Painting of Persia, India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century, vol.II, London, 1912, pls.250-251). This implies that the manuscript was already separated by this time. A border from the same manuscript, also in the Keir Collection is published in L'Étrange et le Merveilleux en terres d'Islam (exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2001, p 106, no. 71). Another is in the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin (K2019m, 7 (10.273a); Jens Kröger and Désirée Heiden Islamische Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen, exhibition catalogue, no. 166, p. 208). A further border (although it now surrounds a miniature by Reza 'Abbasi as opposed to a page from Sa'di's Gulistan), is published by Abolala Soudavar (Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, no. 105, p. 267). A gold border from the manuscript was sold in these Rooms, 31 March 2009, lot 179. Others were in the collection of Stuart Cary Welch, sold at Sotheby’s, 6 April 2011, lots 74, 75 and 76.