ATTRIBUTED TO MU'IN MUSAVVIR, SAFAVID ISFAHAN, IRAN, CIRCA 1660

Details

KHUSRAW PARVIZ AND BAHRAM CHUBINA PARLEY ON THE EVE OF BATTLE
ATTRIBUTED TO MU'IN MUSAVVIR, SAFAVID ISFAHAN, IRAN, CIRCA 1660
An illustration from the Shahnama of Firdawsi, opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, with 17ll. of black nasta'liq above and below arranged in four columns, verso with 27ll. of black nasta'liq with section heading picked out in red, set within gold and polychrome rules, the margins plain, catchword
Text panel 10 5/8 x 6 ¼in. (26.9 x 16cm.); folio 13 5/8 x 8 ¾in. (34.6 x 22.1cm.)

Provenance

With Richard Ettinghausen (d.1979),
Sotheby's London, 25 April 2012, lot 480

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The celebrated artist Mu'in Musavvir is known to have illustrated at least six copies of the Shahnama, including the one from which this painting comes. Although none of these manuscripts bears a patron's name or a place of production, the quality of the work historically led some scholars to argue that at least some of them were copied for Shah 'Abbas II (r. AH 1052-77 / 1642-66 AD). In the mid-17th century however non-royal connoisseurs also commissioned some of the most sumptuous illustrated manuscripts (Massumeh Farhad, 'The Art of Mu'in Musavvir: A Mirror of his Times' in Sheila Canby (ed.), Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting, Marg, 1990, p.115). A complete Shahnama with twenty-seven illustrations by Mu'in was sold at Christie's, New York, 27-28 June 2006, lot 62.

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