Arts of the Islamic World and India, including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World and India, including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Zayn al-'Abidin 'Ali ibn al-Husayn (659-713 AD), Du'a fi al-'itiraf wa talab al-tawba, a prayer in confession and seeking repentance, ascribed to Yaqut al-Musta'simi, Persia, late 13th/14th century, with later illumination
Auction Closed
April 26, 01:36 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Arabic manuscript on paper, 6 leaves, plus 4 flyleaves, 7 lines to the page written in naskh in black ink, ruled in gold, black and green, within later gold floral illuminated margins, f.1b with later illuminated headpiece, colophon with name of Yaqut al-Musta'simi and date Muharram 695 AH/November-December 1295 AD, in detached marbled binding, one cover lacking
text panel: 13.1 by 7.4cm.
leaf: 24.6 by 14.9cm.
Yaqut al-Musta'simi is heralded as the greatest calligrapher in the history of Islam, and his status is almost legendary. He was born early in the thirteenth century, in either Anatolia or Abyssinia. He was brought to Baghdad as a eunuch and was taught calligraphy by Safi' al-Din al-Urmawi, one of the leading masters of the day and a court scribe. Yaqut was employed as an official secretary and court scribe during the last years of the Abbasid Caliphate and the first decades of Ilkhanid rule. He died in Baghdad around the year 1298 and was buried near the grave of the jurist Ahmad Ibn Hanbal.
His prestigious reputation meant his work was esteemed and copied by contemporaneous calligraphers and his later followers, each trying the emulate his style (Blair 2006, p.242). This manuscript is certainly written in a style that is very close to the great master as shown by the horizontal forms of the isolated kaf and lam letters.
The manuscript clearly became a prized possession and, like other manuscripts bearing the name of Yaqut, it has been remargined and illuminated in the sixteenth or seventeeth century. It was probably thought to be a work by the master throughout its subsequent ownership and an unnamed notes states "A gift from …(no name given) a prayer from the Sahifah Kamilah of His Holiness Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin- peace be upon him - in Yaqut’s hand".
Further notes within the manuscript record numerous later owners, the first, Muhammad ibn Haydar al-Husayni who name is recorded on the opening folio if this manuscript, dated Rabi’ II 715 AH/July-August 1315 AD. Subsequent owners from the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries include Sulayman Mirza son of Muhammad Khan Qajar, Prince Jahansuz son of Sulayman Khan Qajar, Prince I’tizad al-Saltanah, son of Fath ‘Ali Shah.
A Qur’an with a colophon bearing the name of Yaqut was sold at Christie’s 1 April 2021, lot 21.