The Opening Illuminated Double Page from the Shah Isma'il II Manuscript of Firdausi's Shahnameh, Persia, Qazvin, Safavid, circa 1577

Persian manuscript on paper, 22 lines to the page, written in black Nasta'liq script in 4 columns, separated by intercolumnar rules in gold, headings in gold, flanked by floral decoration, illuminated opening headpiece composed of interlacing vines and split-palmettes in colours and gold with a strapwork border, outer margins filled with large leafy gold vines, intertwined with large blue chinoiserie cloudbands

ex-Collection Rudolf Martin (1864-1925), thence by family descent.

Rudolf Martin was a renowned Anthropology professor, who taught at the University of Zurich and the University of Munich, and wrote the handbook Lehrbuch der Anthropologie in Systematischer Darstellung, Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der anthropologischen Methoden fur Studierende, Ärzte und Forschungsreisende, first published in 1914 and re-printed in 1928 and 1956.

In generally good overall condition, bifolium has been reattached, a few nibbles to leaf edges and some rubbing, paper repairs, illumination bright and ink bold, as viewed.
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inscriptions

The page with the illuminated heading is the beginning of Firdausi's Shahnameh. The text continues on the other page with illuminated borders, then to the one without marginal decorations. The prose section is a part of Abu Mansuri preface to the Shahnameh. Marginal notes are explanations for words such as: 'Nahid is the name for the planet Zuhreh (Venus)'.

After careful analysis of the hand, structure of the text, paper and measurements, it seems beyond doubt that the present lot is the opening double page (likely to follow a further preceeding page of illumination, perhaps a double-shamsa or double-miniature), of the manuscript of the Shahnameh comissioned for Shah Isma'il in the second half of the sixteenth century. This hyposthesis is furthermore strengthened given that the present lot shares with the following leaf from the Shahnameh itself the provenance of Rudolf Martin in the early part of the twentieth century.

Interestingly, Firdawsi's poems differ in many places to one of the accepted editions of the text. To the best of our knowledge, there is not a a post-Timurid Persian Shahnameh that has Abu Mansuri preface, while it is often found in those copied in India. As such, the present double page, represents a significant discovery in the study of the Shahnameh, as well as a rediscovery of a leaf from a manuscript dispersed in the early twentieth century.