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拍品专文
This manuscript retains a highly interesting bookcover. The composition of its decoration is arranged around a central quatrefoil. Four untooled fleur-de-lys rise from this quatrefoil to form a large lozenge or four-pointed star. The points of this star encroach on the rectangular borders of the cover whilst stylized palmettes, also untooled, fill in the spandrels. These motifs are silhouetted against a densely textured ground of stamped ringlets. A very close comparable example is provided by a 14th or 15th century South Arabian bookcover in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (Gulnar Bosch, John Carswell, Guy Petherbridge, Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking, exhibition catalogue, Chicago, 1981, cat.10, p.98-99). It is the work of the maker Isma’il. The doublures of our manuscript are stamped with the repeated benedictory inscription al-‘izz al-muqim al-da’im (‘lasting and perpetual glory’) which also appears on the binding of a Yemeni Qur’an dated to 1450-1500 in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection (David James, After Timur, Oxford, 1992, cat.11, pp.52-53).
As suggested by its binding, our manuscript is likely to have been copied in Rasulid Yemen. The Rasulids ruled South Yemen and Tihama, with their capital at Ta’izz from AH 626/1228 AD to AH 858/1454 AD. According to Bosworth, “a number of Amirs who accompanied the first Ayyubids to Yemen in the 13th century, remained behind after the last Ayyubid ruler left Yemen for Syria in 1229. Ayyubid tradition remained strong in the new state and in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw the zenith of Rasulid political power and cultural splendour. The Sultans were great builders in such cities as Ta’izz and Zabid, and were munificent patrons of Arabic literature, with not a few of the Sultans themselves proficient authors” (C.E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties – A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, Edinburgh, 1996, pp.108-09). It is only natural that the Rasulids would be influenced by their neighbours the Mamluks, who succeed the Ayyubids in Egypt, in the production of illuminated manuscripts.
Whilst later Yemeni manuscripts such as the Khalili manuscript discussed above may be copied in a strong provincial style, the overall conception of the calligraphy and illumination of our manuscript is very Mamluk in style. However in his discussion on a Rasulid Qur’an folio in the Khalili Collection, David James mentions the gold calligraphy outlined in black, such as is seen here in the titles of the suras. He writes of it as one of the features that secures the Rasulid attribution, as it is infrequently found in Mamluk manuscripts (David James, The Master Scribes, London, 1992, no.40, p.160). The colours used in the opening illumination, with the bright pinkish red and flat blue, are also not typically of the Mamluk Egyptian or Syrian tradition.
As suggested by its binding, our manuscript is likely to have been copied in Rasulid Yemen. The Rasulids ruled South Yemen and Tihama, with their capital at Ta’izz from AH 626/1228 AD to AH 858/1454 AD. According to Bosworth, “a number of Amirs who accompanied the first Ayyubids to Yemen in the 13th century, remained behind after the last Ayyubid ruler left Yemen for Syria in 1229. Ayyubid tradition remained strong in the new state and in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw the zenith of Rasulid political power and cultural splendour. The Sultans were great builders in such cities as Ta’izz and Zabid, and were munificent patrons of Arabic literature, with not a few of the Sultans themselves proficient authors” (C.E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties – A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, Edinburgh, 1996, pp.108-09). It is only natural that the Rasulids would be influenced by their neighbours the Mamluks, who succeed the Ayyubids in Egypt, in the production of illuminated manuscripts.
Whilst later Yemeni manuscripts such as the Khalili manuscript discussed above may be copied in a strong provincial style, the overall conception of the calligraphy and illumination of our manuscript is very Mamluk in style. However in his discussion on a Rasulid Qur’an folio in the Khalili Collection, David James mentions the gold calligraphy outlined in black, such as is seen here in the titles of the suras. He writes of it as one of the features that secures the Rasulid attribution, as it is infrequently found in Mamluk manuscripts (David James, The Master Scribes, London, 1992, no.40, p.160). The colours used in the opening illumination, with the bright pinkish red and flat blue, are also not typically of the Mamluk Egyptian or Syrian tradition.