farfel_n03_145_203

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203
Feb 85
S.F. Bookfair
Maggs Bros
London
$180=160L
(opaque watercolors + ink on paper)
Shahnama. (Book of Kings) Firdawsi.
Manuscript leaf with miniature (4x6 1/4") - Persian Southern Iran (Shiraz) Artist 1530-50 with
21 lines to the page in 4 columns of nasta'liq script,
souble intercolumar rules in gold, margins ruled in
red, blue + gold, headings in red. On paper.
(167x242mm.) See "Maggs Bulletin No 40, 39 #65 Dec '85. #126 Oct 186 L 300 1L=$1.50
Rustam + Esfandiyar??
Rustam - National epic poem of Iran (Persia). Begun by Daqiqi who
came to an untimely end, it was completed by Firdawsi
in A.D. 1010. This monumental work, which recounts
the legends + history of 4 Iranian dynasties ending with
the death of the last sassanian king was completed
by Firsowsi in some 50 to 60 thousand rhyminh
couplets (myth, legend + historical fact are woven together).
G.M. Meredith-Owens: Illustrated Persian Manuscripts.
London, 1973.

- 3 cities above all others in Persia, are assoc. with the arts in the 15th C
Tabriz in the West, Herat in the east, + Shiraz - almost
equidistant between the two - in the south-west. Tabriz,
throughout most of the country, was the Turkman capital. Herat,
meanwhile, continued to be the chief capital of the Timurids.
It was at Herat, under Sultan Hussayn, that printing + the
book arts in general, reached their highest pitch of excellence
- printing was first introduced inot Persia about 1815.

Naskhi - principal script for copying the Koran in eastern Islamic countries
Nastaliq - developed in Persia in the later 14th C + used mostly for
secular writing.
Kufic - named after Kufah in Iraq where according to tradition
it was derived during the reighn of Ali (AD 656-61).
The paper used for Persian manuscripts was made from coarse rags
+ had a somewhat uneven surface. It was sized either with
egg white or a starch solutin + then burnished with mother of

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