Page from the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Hafiz-i... - Lot 177 - Ader

Lot 177
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6000 - 8000 EUR
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Result : 14 080EUR
Page from the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Hafiz-i... - Lot 177 - Ader
Page from the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Hafiz-i Abru: The Chinese Emperor Hou Zhu Text and illustration: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, c. 1425-26 Persian manuscript on cream and polished "Baghdadi" paper, the text in black naskh in red and blue rules, the titles in large red naskh, the emperor painted in polychrome washes enhanced with gold, mistara visible, with advertisement, inventory number '10147'. Page size: 42.8 x 33 cm; view size: 33.7 x 22.7 cm Slight soiling and slight abrasions. Staining in the margins. Well preserved. See the previous lot's entry for other "intact" pages in public collections depicting Chinese emperors. The emperor is named "Juzhou who reigned 33 years" (probably Hou Zhou, the Six Dynasty emperor who reigned from 223 to 263 AD). A folio from the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Hafiz-i Abru: The Chinese Emperor Hou Zhu, Timurid Herat, Afghanistan, circa 1425-26 (text and illustration) Provenance: Former Émile Tabbagh collection. This lot is part of a set of eight pages from the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Sultan Shahrukh presented in this sale. For more information, see the PDF catalogue. ______________________________ Eight pages of the Majma' al-Tawarikh of Sultan Shahrukh from the collection of Emile Tabbagh The eight pages presented here are from a major manuscript produced in Herat in the Timurid workshops of Sultan Shahrukh (r. 1405-47), successor to the founder of the dynasty, Timur (1336-1405). Entitled Majma' al-Tawarikh ("The Assembly of Stories"), this Universal History is a dynastic project that establishes the legitimacy of Shahrukh, the fourth son of Timur, to whom he was not the heir apparent. The manuscript has a complex history, both in terms of its production in Shahrukh's scriptorium (kitabkhana) and its critical fortune in the twentieth century, when numerous illustrations were added to the manuscript shortly before its arrival in the United States around 1926, presumably in Iran, in an attempt to deceive art lovers. The manuscript was divided between 1928 and 1933 by the dealer and collector Émile Tabbagh, its owner with Parish Watson. It is now widely dispersed in international public and private collections. These eight pages were donated by the descendants of Émile Tabbagh (d. 1934). Other pages are in the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, etc. Through its additions, then its almost immediate division and dispersal between 1928 and 1935, the Majma' al-Tawarikh manuscript embodies the history of the Islamic art market in the early 20th century. The Majma' al-Tawarikh is a Universal History from the Prophets of the Old Testament to the Reign of Shahrukh written by the historian Hafiz-i Abru (d. 1430). Two illustrated manuscripts survive today: one is autograph and is kept in the library of the Topkapi Sarayi Palace, Istanbul (Hazine 1653), the other, from which our folios are taken, is a copy dating from the same years, and is now dispersed. Both copies bear the seal of the Kitabkhana of Shahrukh... See the PDF catalogue for more information
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