.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The scribe 'Abd al-Rahim Khwarazmi was a royal scribe at the court of the Aqquyunlu Sultan Ya'qub, (r.1478-90). His pen name was Anisi (after anis or companion of the Sultan), but he often signed himself Sultani or Ya'qubi. He also served under Sultan Rustam when he signed himself 'Abd al-Rahim Rustami (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol.II, Tehran, 1346 SH., pp.384-88; and V. Minorsky (trans. and ed.), Calligraphers and Painters, A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, son of Mir Munshi, Washington, 1959, pp. 100-01)
The lacquer binding of this manuscript, though unfortunately quite worn, is contemporaneous with the manuscript. The hunting scenes that decorate it relate to a book cover in the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, on loan to the Louvre which is dated slightly later than our manuscript, to circa 1560-88 (inv. AD 27659a/b, Sophie Makariou (ed.), Islamic Art at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2012, pp. 374-75).
The poet Ali Shir Nava'i was a well-known champion of the Turkish language, a cause adopted by various other Timurid rulers such as Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506), who himself composed poems in Turkish. The Qaraquyunlu and Aqquyunlu rulers later followed in this promotion of the Turkish language in a period which has become known as the 'Turkish Revival' (Aboulala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, p.116). A Diwan of Hedayat dedicated to Sultan Ya'qub's predecessor and brother Sultan Khalil (r.1478) and attributed to Tabriz is in the Chester Beatty Library. It has illustrations with figures with similar flat rounded turbans to those found here (inv. T.401, David J. Roxburgh (ed.), Turks. A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600, exhibition catalogue, 2005, no. 198, p. 238).
The lacquer binding of this manuscript, though unfortunately quite worn, is contemporaneous with the manuscript. The hunting scenes that decorate it relate to a book cover in the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, on loan to the Louvre which is dated slightly later than our manuscript, to circa 1560-88 (inv. AD 27659a/b, Sophie Makariou (ed.), Islamic Art at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2012, pp. 374-75).
The poet Ali Shir Nava'i was a well-known champion of the Turkish language, a cause adopted by various other Timurid rulers such as Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506), who himself composed poems in Turkish. The Qaraquyunlu and Aqquyunlu rulers later followed in this promotion of the Turkish language in a period which has become known as the 'Turkish Revival' (Aboulala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, p.116). A Diwan of Hedayat dedicated to Sultan Ya'qub's predecessor and brother Sultan Khalil (r.1478) and attributed to Tabriz is in the Chester Beatty Library. It has illustrations with figures with similar flat rounded turbans to those found here (inv. T.401, David J. Roxburgh (ed.), Turks. A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600, exhibition catalogue, 2005, no. 198, p. 238).