The Destruction of the Tribe of 'Ad, an illustrated leaf from Hafiz-i Abru's Majma' al-Tawarikh, HERAT, PERSIA, circa 1420

Gouache with use of gold on paper, 19 lies to the page written in naskhi script in black ink, headings and significant words picked out in red, verso with 31 lines written in naskhi script in black ink, margins rules in red and blue

Italian private collection, Traviso 1993.

Giovanni Caratola Ereditá dell'Islam, Arte Islamica in Italia, Venice, 1994, no. 227, pp.373-375.

some staining, creasing and rubbing, ink strong, some minor losses to right edge, overall good condition, as viewed.
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This leaf originates from the famous illustrated copy of Hafiz-i  Abru's Majma al-Tawarikh (Universal History). It was commissioned by the Timurid ruler Shahrukh and is a history of the world from its beginning to the middle of Shahrukh's reign (1405 – 1447), and encompasses Biblical, Iranian, Islamic and Chinese history. The work was based on  Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-Tawarikh, a universal history written for the Mongol ruler Ghazan. The aim of the work was to legitimize the ruling dynasty by giving it a sound historical pedigree. The dispersed copy from which leaf comes bears the library seal of Shahrukh himself, and was therefore presumably copied and illustrated under his instructions (Canby 1998, pp. 28-30).

Illustrated leaves from this manuscript are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The David Collection, Copenhagen, the collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan, the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.