Illustrated manuscript of the Divan of Shah Qasim Anvar

Unknown (Iranian)

Sultan Ali Mashhadi


Item type:
manuscript, codex, scroll
Date of creation:
1490 and later additions
Height:
30.0 cm  (11 13/16 in.)
Width:
20.0 cm  (7 7/8 in.)
measurements are for manuscript pages, painted images themselves are smaller
Technique / Medium:
ink, color and gold on paper
Place of creation:
Mashhad (Khorāsān-e Raẕavī, Īrān)
School:
Timurid

Description

This codex is a collection of poetry by Qāsem-e Anvār, a Persian poet and Sufi. Among its many pages are three colorful illustrations, one with a representation of person playing a tanbur. Description of the full manuscript from the museum website: The manuscript opens with an illuminated round medallion, without a dedicatory inscription. The beginning of the actual text page on the verso has an illuminated heading. The text panel on this page and the following pages are mounted on thicker, colored paper. Thus the gilded and decorated margins and the three paintings in the manuscript belong to Safavid and later periods. Several notes and seals on the first and last pages also acknowledge the history of the manuscript and its various owners. For example, an inscription on the first folio notes that the manuscript entered into the library of the Mughal emperor, Nur al-Din Jahangir b. Akbar Padishah, on his accession to the throne in 1014/1606. The dark brown leather binding has a stamped and gilded center and corner pieces. The inner covers are burgundy colored and stamped with a center piece decorated with birds.

The author, Mu'in al-DIn Ali of Tabriz (1356-1433) known as Qasim-i Anvar was a well-known Sufi shaykh who had a large following in Herat but was suspected of collaborating with an assailant who stabbed the Timurid ruler Shahrukh and was thus banished from Herat. He composed a popular mathnavi and a divan of Sufi poetry.
According to its colophon this manuscript was copied by Sultan Ali Mashhadi in the month of Shaban, 895 (June-July 1490). Sultan Ali Mashhadi (1442-1520) was a master calligrapher and a student of another famous calligrapher Mawlana Azhar (d. 1434) who was active in the Timurid ruler Shahrukh's court in Herat.

People as subjects

Qāsim Anvār, ʻAlī ibn Naṣīr (1356-1433)

Iconclass

49L72
codex
48CC7522
one person playing string instrument (plucked) - CC - out of doors

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Tanbur [3466]

RIdIM images


Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

5782