SAFAVID IRAN, DATED AH 962 / 1554-5 AD

The silsilat al-dhahhab is the first part of the Haft Awrang of Jami. Composed in the late 15th century, it comprises a series of short pithy stories intended for moral instruction. A double-page frontispiece from a Khamsa of Nizami in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is very similar to the frontispiece of ours in the overall composition, using green and blue strapwork in the field rather than turquoise and orange as seen here (acc.no.M.73.5.486). Since no subsequent folios of that manuscript are preserved, it is hard to know how similar the rest of the manuscript would have been to ours. This style of interlacing framework within the field is very typical of work done in Safavid Shiraz, and can be seen on the frontispiece of the Loewi Khamsa, which sold in these Rooms, 24 October 2024, lot 60.