PROBABLY AQ QOYUNLU SHIRAZ, IRAN, DATED AH 888 / 1483-4 AD

Details

JAMAL AL-DIN NIZAMI (D.1209): KHAMSA
PROBABLY AQ QOYUNLU SHIRAZ, IRAN, DATED AH 888 / 1483-4 AD
Poetry, Persian manuscript on paper, 334ff. plus one flyleaf, each folio with 21ll. black nasta'liq arranged in four columns, section headings in gold thuluth in panel set between middle two columns, set within gold, blue, and black rules, the margins plain with blue outer rules, catchwords, f.29v. with illuminated headpiece introducing Khusraw and Shirin, with 16 half-page illustrations, the colophon dated, in Qajar lacquer binding, first folio replaced, some repainting to the illustrations
Text panel 6 3⁄8 x 4 3/8in. (16.3 x 11.2cm.); folio 9 x 6 ¼in. (22.7 x 15.8cm.)

Provenance

Prince Naghir Demidof
Bonhams London, 1 May 2003, lot 36

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The illuminated heading that leads the chapter of Khusraw and Shirin in our manuscript is similar in style to the illuminated pages of a manuscript in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.13.228.4) signed by the scribe 'Abd al-Karim al-Khwarazmi. The paintings are closely comparable to those in a Khamsa of Nizami dated to 12 Ramadan AH 894⁄9 August 1489 AD on loan to the Harvard Art Museums (acc.no.9.2015). Particularly close are the paintings of Bahram Gur meeting the shepherd who hung his dog from a tree, in which each of the elements of the paintings are rendered in the same way.

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