Five Pages | Purchase From Islamic Art Dealers In London

Description

Five pages from the Majma’ al-Tawarikh (The Assembly of Stories), a history of the world commissioned by the Timurid Emperor Shahrukh (1377-1447) and written by the historian Hafiz-i Abru (d. 1430). It is a history of the world from the creation of Adam to the reign of Sharukh, incorporating Islamic, Chinese, and Biblical history.

1) The Chinese Emperors Feidi, Huaidi and Mindi
Text and illustration: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, c. 1425-26
Persian manuscript on cream "Baghdadi" paper, the text in black naskh in red and blue rules, the titles in large red naskh, three Chinese emperors painted in polychrome washes enhanced with gold, the reverse with 33 lines of text, advertisement, inventory number '10150'.
Page size: 41.3 x 29.8 cm; view size: 32.8 x 22.5 cm

2) The Chinese Emperor Hou Zhu
Text and illustration: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, c. 1425-26
Persian manuscript on cream and polished "Baghdadi" paper, the text in black naskh in red and blue rules, the titles in large red naskh, the emperor painted in polychrome washes enhanced with gold, mistara visible, with advertisement, inventory number '10147'.
Page size: 42.8 x 33 cm; view size: 33.7 x 22.7 cm

3) Rustam blinds Isfandiyar with an arrow
Text and illustration: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, c. 1425-26
Persian manuscript on cream "Baghdadi" paper 33 lines of black naskh, the text in red and blue rules, illustrated with a large gouache painting heightened with silver, the margins with an advertisement, a Timurid or Safavid seal (illegible) in the upper right corner, inventory number '10176'.
Page size: 42.5 x 33 cm; in view: 33.4 x 22.5 cm; painting: 16.2 x 22 cm

4) The Death of the Samanid Emir Nuh bin Mansur
Text: Ilkhanid period, c. 1310-20; illustration: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, c. 1425-26
Persian manuscript on cream and polished "Baghdadi" paper, the text in black naskh in red and blue rules, a large gouache painting heightened with gold depicting the Amir bedridden and surrounded by the following, the painting framed with 24 lines of text, the leaf mounted on a cardboard page, inventory number '10331', the border inscribed " published by Kunnel [sic]" (Ernst Kühnel).
Size page: 42.9 x 33.4 cm; view: 37 x 25.2 cm; painting: 11.2 x 25.5 cm

5) History of Abdullah bin Saba
Text: Herat, Afghanistan, Timurid period, ca. 1425; illustration: ca. 1900-1925, probably Iran
Persian manuscript on brown "Herati" paper, the title of the chapter in large red thuluth, important phrases in red naskh, the text in black naskh in red and blue rules, the reverse with 33 lines of text, the first lines of the chapter replaced by the illustration depicting an audience of a king and three courtiers, inventory number '10350'.
Page size: 42.5 x 32.8 cm; in view: 33.7 x 22.4 cm; painting: 11.8 x 22.2 cm

Exhibited

‘International Exhibition of Persian Art.’ Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, October – December 1926 (pre-dispersal).

Provenance

Previously in the Émile Tabbagh Collection, Paris. The manuscript was divided between 1928 and 1933 with Parish-Watson.
Inherited by his wife, Marie Tabbagh, Paris, and his sons, Maurice and Henri Tabbagh, Paris, 1934-1936 (his estate was split equally into three parts. Probate information was published in New York Times (March 6, 1934) p.44.)
Thence by descent.
ALR: S00219033, these manuscripts have been checked against the Interpol database.

Note on the Provenance

Of Syrian origin, Émile Tabbagh (1879-1933) and his brother George were major dealers of Islamic art and antiquities in the early twentieth century. They owned a gallery called the Tabbagh Frères in Paris, and in 1910 Émile moved to New York, setting up first under the Tabbagh Frères name - an American Art News advertisement dated to October 22nd, 1910, states their addresses as 8 Rue Rossini, Paris and 396 Fifth Avenue, New York, before eponymously renaming the gallery. George continued to deal in Paris.
They were known to have been in Raqqa in 1899, and again in later years, as surviving correspondence between those involved in the excavations there and the Ottoman Imperial Museum, who was funding the work, mentions a ‘Jamil and Jorji Tabah’ (Émile and George Tabbagh) purchasing recently excavated ceramics to sell on.
This manuscript was by no means the only important Persian manuscript to have passed through their hands: the same advertisement mentioned above describes them as dealing in ‘Persian Mss’; in 1916 the American Art News reviewed an exhibition given by Émile Tabbagh of Persian miniatures and ancient glass which included fifty examples of miniature painting from the Mongol, Timurid, Savid and Hindo-Persian schools (American Art News, Vol. 15, No. 9 (Dec. 9, 1916), p 3); in the National Museum of Asian Art, USA, alongside two folios from this same ‘dispersed’ manuscript are: folios from a Safavid copy of a Shahnama (Book of kings) by Firdawsi (d.1020) (both these and the ‘dispersed’ manuscript folios were sold at Émile Tabbagh’s posthumous sale in Paris in 1935), folios from a Safavid copy of a Khamsa (Quintet) by Nizami (d.1209), which Charles Freer Lang bought from the Tabbagh Frères in Paris in 1908 and a folio from an Arabic translation of De Materia Medica by Dioscorides (ca. 40-90 C.E.), which was at one time in the possession of the Tabbagh Frères; and in the British Museum is a folio from the same Shahnama of Firdawsi as in the Smithsonian, which was deposited in the British Museum by George Tabbagh in 1923 and sold to them in 1925 (image 4).
It is clear that this ‘dispersed’ manuscript is one of several important manuscripts to have been in the possession of the Tabbaghs. It possibly came with Émile Tabbagh from Paris to New York around 1910, where it remained until it was split with Parish-Watson. Thirty-nine of Tabbagh’s illustrated folios were offered at his posthumous auction in New York in 1936, ten in Paris. The fate of the rest is unknown, aside from the current pages, which remained in his collection until now.