Shahnama Project : Tarikh-i Dilgusha-yi Shamshirkhani

Tavakkul Muhammad Beg Husaini

Shahnama Project

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>The manuscript is preserved in a modern red leather binding with gold lettering on the spine, stamped gold central lozenge and two pendants, and corner pieces, with a gold border. Doublures of plain thick paper. The text starts on fol. 2v under a dull gold and faded pale blue unvan, 125 x 130 mm. The catchwords are in place throughout.The paper is thick and creamy, without watermarks. The manuscript is in good condition and is a carefully made and attractive copy. Rubrics and other text headings are in red. The rubrics are not ruled. The margins are ruled with thin blue, space, two thin black with gold, thick gold, thin blue, thin space and tomato red.The miniatures are neat and bright, well drawn and with delicate details. The skies are particularly fine; the elements of the narrative are generally reduced to a minimum. A detailed colophon on fol. 232r gives the date and the name of the scribe, and mentions that the work was copied in 22 sections (juz') in 6 chapters (daftar), with 75 illustrations. In fact, there are 76. Many of these are inserted in passages of poetry rather than prose and so the equivalent lines in Mohl are recorded as 'break-lines'. The subject matter of the paintings mirrors the choice of scenes commonly chosen to illustrate the Shahnama itself.An owner's seal is found on fol. 3r.</p></p>