Oliver White
Head of Department
Lot 5R
Three illustrated leaves from a manuscript of al-Qazwini's Aja'ib al-makhluqat wa ghara'ib al-mujudat (The Wonders of Creation and Oddities of Existence) Persia, Shiraz, late 16th Century(3)
11 June 2020, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£1,500 - £2,000
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Three illustrated leaves from a manuscript of al-Qazwini's Aja'ib al-makhluqat wa ghara'ib al-mujudat (The Wonders of Creation and Oddities of Existence)
Persia, Shiraz, late 16th Century
Persia, Shiraz, late 16th Century
Persian manuscript on paper, three leaves framed separately, 14 lines to the page written in nasta'liq script in black ink with headings in red ink, each leaf with illustrations in gouache and gold recto and verso, inner margins ruled in blue, orange and gold
leaves approximately 200 x 125 mm.; text area 158 x 88 mm.(3)
leaves approximately 200 x 125 mm.; text area 158 x 88 mm.(3)
Footnotes
Provenance
Private UK collection: acquired from Christie's or Sotheby's sometime in the early 1970s.
Each of the leaves comes respectively from the sections on divs and shaytans (devils); on reptiles and insects; and on sheep or goats. There are some discrepancies between the text found here and some editions of the complete text. A leaf from the same manuscript, depicting King Solomon with the animals, appeared at Sotheby's, Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 14th December 1987, lot 119.
The text, which remained popular in the Islamic world for centuries, was composed by the Arab astronomer, geographer, zoologist and botanist Zakariya ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Qazvini (d. 682/1283-4). It was divided into two main sections, one on celestial phenomena, the other on terrestrial matters (seas, mountains, rivers, minerals and animals, and a final section on demons). It was composed in Arabic and translated into Persian later on (in the late 14th Century), and from the earliest examples was always heavily illustrated. For the text and a discussion of the early manuscripts, see A. T. Adamova and M. Bayani, Persian Painting: the Arts of the Book and Portraiture: The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, London 2015, pp. 175-176.