ManuscriptsPersian15th century

Illustrated Manuscript of the Divan of Shah Qasim Anvar

1490 and later additions

Description

The manuscript opens with an illuminated round medallion, without a dedicatory inscription. The beginning of the actual text page on the verso has an illuminated heading. The text panel on this page and the following pages are mounted on thicker, colored paper. Thus the gilded and decorated margins and the three paintings in the manuscript belong to Safavid and later periods. Several notes and seals on the first and last pages also acknowledge the history of the manuscript and its various owners. For example, an inscription on the first folio notes that the manuscript entered into the library of the Mughal emperor, Nur al-Din Jahangir b. Akbar Padishah, on his accession to the throne in 1014/1606. The dark brown leather binding has a stamped and gilded center and corner pieces. The inner covers are burgundy colored and stamped with a center piece decorated with birds. The author, Mu'in al-DIn Ali of Tabriz (1356-1433) known as Qasim-i Anvar was a well-known Sufi shaykh who had a large following in Herat but was suspected of collaborating with an assailant who stabbed the Timurid ruler Shahrukh and was thus banished from Herat. He composed a popular mathnavi and a divan of Sufi poetry. According to its colophon this manuscript was copied by Sultan Ali Mashhadi in the month of Shaban, 895 (June-July 1490). Sultan Ali Mashhadi (1442-1520) was a master calligrapher and a student of another famous calligrapher Mawlana Azhar (d. 1434) who was active in the Timurid ruler Shahrukh's court in Herat.

Classification

Manuscripts

Medium

Ink, colors, and gold on paper; leather binding

Culture

Persian

Period

Timurid period

Century

15th century

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Department

Department of Islamic & Later Indian Art

Dimensions

30 x 20 cm (11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in.)

Provenance

Ezzat-Malek Soudavar, Geneva, Switzerland (by 2014), by descent; to her son Abolala Soudavar, Houston, Texas (2014), loan; to Harvard Art Museums, 2015. Note: Ezzat-Malek Soudavar (1913-2014) formed this collection over a period of sixty years. She purchased the works of art on the international art market.