PROBABLY MASHHAD, SAFAVID IRAN, FROM A MANUSCRIPT COPIED BY MUHY AND DATED SAFAR AH 973/SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1565 AD

This illustration comes from a now dispersed Shahnama copied by the scribe Muhy and dated the end of Safar AH 973/September-October 1565 AD. This is most probably Muhy Haravi, who according to Bayani was a pupil of Qasim Shadishah. Bayani records works signed by him, dated between AH 968 / 1561 AD and AH 982 / 1574-5 AD. The Menakib-i Hünerveran of Mustafa ‘Ali, written in AH 995 / 1586-7 AD, describes him as ‘the finest calligrapher in Khurasan’ (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va Athar-i Khushnavisan, vols. 3-4, reprint Tehran, 1363 H., sh. (1984), pp. 895-6). The bulk of the manuscript, including 20 illustrations, was sold in these Rooms, 26 October 2023, lot 10. Further paintings from the manuscript have sold in these Rooms, 6 October 2009, lot 144; 11 October 2005, lots 100-10; 13 April 2010, lots 92-3; 5 October 2010, lot 221. Two were signed by the artist Siyavush who worked on the 1576-7 Shah Isma'il II Shahnama. Our artist must have worked within the same established atelier, during an interesting and understudied period of artistic transition in the tumultuous years before the reign of Shah Abbas (1588-1629).