Ferdowsi abdul qasim (4 Ergebnisse)

Large folio (39 x 26 cm). pp.[1]+14+180+131 [i.e.130]+159 [i.e.158]+149+[1]+2-57+11+[2]. Lithograph Persian nasta'liq text, 33 lines to the page arranged in 6 vertical columns, decorative chapter headings, catchwords. Contemporary European-style full purple morocco, sides richly gilt with foliate borders, spine with raised bands and gilt-decorated compartments, one of which lettered directly in gilt in Persian, marbled endpapers. 58 illustrations in the text, plus two additional, slightly larger illustrations by the same artist adhered to front pastedowns, each book with separate decorative title-page, the verso of each with decorative head-piece. Provenance: Bibliothèque orientaliste Maisonneuve, Paris; discreet stamp to verso of final leaf. Some light wrinkling to first few folios, first and second printed folios slightly separated down the gutter, contents with some light toning but generally clean and without any markings, small tear just encroaching onto text on pp.107-108, binding rubbed and scuffed but very sound, an excellent copy overall. An early lithographic Shahnameh, the great Persian epic, with calligraphy by Muhammad Ibrahim, and numerous illustrations drawn in the style of contemporary Qajar miniatures, melding the conventions of manuscript and printed book. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Bombay became a central hub for Persian lithography, driven heavily by trade and the migration of the Zoroastrian Parsi community. These Indian-printed Shahnameh copies were highly sought after, often serving as visual and textual models for subsequent editions published back in Iran. The first such lithographed edition was published there in 1846, followed by the first illustrated edition in 1849. There is a long and interesting preface on how the author produced this version, including a detailed list of seventeen other copies of the text which he studied, both Persian and Indian, trustworthy versions and incomplete ones. He lists the various copies he used, their dates, the number of couplets of each and their scribes - including one in the Royal Asiatic Society, copied by Nizam ibn Muhammad Shirazi - and the lithograph copy of 1811, noting what each included (for example the Garshasp-Nameh of Asadi). He took out the sections clearly not by Firdausi, such as the Garshasp-nameh, and added them in an appendix. There is also a section on how the stories of the Shahnameh were collected, and the biography of Ferdowsi. The scribe, Muhammad Ibrahim, is recorded by Bayani as a Shirazi nasta'liq calligrapher, who was knowledgeable in literature, and who wrote poems with the penname Safa. He moved to India and copied texts to be printed and was also involved in trade. He travelled to Hyderabad, where he taught Persian for a while. He retuned to Persia and died in AH 1301/AD 1883-84. Bayani lists five of his lithographed manuscripts dated between AH 1269/AD 1852-53 and AH 1286/AD 1869-70. See Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. III, Tehran 1348 sh., pp. 623-24. At the end of the preface on Ferdowsi there is an illustration depicting four poets (identified as Rudaki, 'Asjudi, 'Unsuri and Firdausi himself reading a poem) at the court of Sultan Mahmud. The text above this image bears the information that this part was completed in AH 1245/AD 1829-30 and includes the Christian date 1829. The decorated last page bears a heading: 'The author of this book and the date of its finishing says' and includes the information that the author (clearly Muhammad Ibrahim) left Persia for India, where he was asked to produce this book. This part is dated AH 1272/AD 1856-57) with an oval seal impression of Muhammad Baqir, who may be the same as the Shirazi merchant.…

At a glance this leaf would appear to be a product of the Safavid courts, however a closer inspection reveals that it is in fact the work of a very skilled Mughal workshop taking influence from Safavid art. During the rule of Emperor Akber (third Mughal Emperor, r. 1556-1605), Mughal India grew rapidly in size while maintaining a strong and stable economy. This in turn, lead to a greater patronage of Indo-Persian arts and cultural pursuits, with Timurid (and later Safavid) poets, architects and artisans moving to Akber's courts at Delhi and Agra. During this period Timurid, Perso-Islamic and Indian styles took influence from one another and became a more distinctive Mughal style. The present painting from a Persian language epic by the poet Ferdowsi, beautifully illustrates the early stages of this stylistic shift from the Safavid to the Mughal. Rather poignantly, the opening words to this leaf are 'shamshir'e hindi' meaning 'Indian sword' which is yielded by Kai Khosrow in the illustration. Single leaf, illuminated manuscript on polished paper, in Farsi with one illuminated miniature depicting Kai Khosrow with his sword raised to avenge his father's death, 225 x 132 mm (text block and total leaf), miniature 125 x 125 mm; text in 4 columns, one line above and 10 lines below the miniature in elegant black nasta'liq, text-frame ruled in gilt (a little oxidised), some light surface soiling; mounted to thick card.…

An early and important English translation of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, containing the section of the text relating to one of the main protagonists, Sohrab. This is the first edition to have been published with parallel Farsi text and is preceded only by an incomplete Calcutta edition in 1785 prepared by Joseph Champion. From the library of Alexander George Ellis of the Royal Asiatic Society (d. 1942), who published several catalogues of the Arabic Printed Books and manuscripts at the British Museum. James Atkinson (1780-1852) was a British orientalist that began his career as a medical officer onboard an East Indiaman, after studying medicine at Edinburgh and London. In 1805 he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the Bengal service and placed in medical charge of the station of Bakarganj, near Dacca. In his leisure he devoted himself to the study of the Persian language with considerable success. Atkinson's Persian translations in both prose and verse are his chief title to fame, and this edition of Soohrab is his first publication. First edition; [6](half title, title and dedication), xxv, [1], 154, [2](errata), 155-267, [3] (errata & ads.)pp., bound with duplicated from pp. 211-242 at the end; 8vo (255 x 150 mm), printed in English and Farsi, lightly age toned, edges uncut and some unopened; housed in 20th-century half calf, spine gilt in raised bands with red morocco label lettered in gold, a very good copy. Provenance: Alexander George Ellis of the Royal Asiatic Society (pencil inscription to half title).…

A monumental Indian Shahnameh with 17 large scale miniatures in the text. This Shahnameh presents a rare example of early eighteenth-century manuscript illustration from provincial Mughal India. This manuscript was completed during the first years of the reign of Muhammad Shah, the 13th Emperor and ruler of the Mughal Empire (r. 1719-1748), however the empire had begun to decline after the reign of Aurangzeb in 1707 and India had started to fragment into smaller kingdoms that pledged nominal allegiance to Muhammad Shah but realistically acted as independent rulers. It is likely that this manuscript would have been copied for one such ruler and that this manuscript would have been an elaborate statement of wealth and power to the province in which it belonged. The miniatures include very unusual compositions for well known scenes of the Shahnameh. The colours are bright and vivid, with accents in both gold and silver, and are comparable in style to illustrations produced in the most Northern territories of India, possibly Kashmir. One of the most striking features of the miniatures included is the scale of the figures and paintings themselves; most of the characters portrayed have a standing height of almost 15cm and their faces alone measure circa 2 cm. A number of the paintings include flags or sections of the scenery extending into the upper or outer margins, a style typically associated with Safavid Art, and many of the central figures in the scenes have contemporary annotations on the paintings of their associated names. Single volume, illuminated manuscript on paper, in Farsi, 268 leaves, incomplete, lacking leaves at the beginning (and possibly only one volume of the Shahnameh bound in two), 385 x 225 mm; four columns, 30 lines black nasta'liq per page, 17 large illustrations in the text heightened in gold and silver, many leaves with early (and sometimes crude) repairs to the margins, with occasional and slight loss to text, some water-staining, catch-words, some leaves and gatherings mis-bound, some smudges to ink and offsetting, contemporary seal impression to first leaf of text; nineteenth-century full tan sheep over boards, extremities scuffed and rubbed, spine a little faded.…