Shahnama Project : Shahnama (Ismail II)

Firdausi

Shahnama Project

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Previously recorded as 2005.1.70-72, 99-103 (Ir.M. 29-29/B, 69-69/D). Several folios from the celebrated Shahnama made for Shah Isma'il II (reg. 1576-77), including the double frontispiece.</p><p>The ms. was originally in the Qajar Royal Library. It was exhibited intact by the dealer, Demotte, in Paris in 1912, but thereafter split up and dispersed through different galleries (e.g. Heeramaneck Gallery) and auction houses into many private and public collections, especially Baron Edmund de Rothschild (cf. Chester Beatty Library Dublin, Kevorkian collection).</p><p>The paintings have been numbered in the order they appear in the text. See also under Dispersed mss. The dimensions given here are from AKM70, of which the image is on the verso and the text on the recto side</p><p>The folios are available on the Museum website and discussed there by Ch. Melville. The pages are also described by Anthony Welch, Collection of Islamic Art, vol. I (1972), pp. 170-78, and vol. III (1978), pp. 79-95, in the unpublished catalogue by Moya Carey, vol. I (2002), pp. 113-19, 163-74,and the manuscript as a whole in two articles by B.W. Robinson, in IRAN, 14 (1967) and 43 (2005).</p></p>