Manuscript of the Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami

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Manuscript of the Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami

Iran, Shiraz, circa 1550
Manuscripts; codices
Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper
7 7/8 x 4 3/8 in. (20.0 x 11.0 cm)
The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, gift of Joan Palevsky (M.73.5.603)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

The southwestern Iranian city of Shiraz was a major center of illustrated manuscript production in the sixteenth century....
The southwestern Iranian city of Shiraz was a major center of illustrated manuscript production in the sixteenth century. Shiraz manuscripts were often executed at a level of quality that rivaled that of the royal courts in Tabriz and later Qazvin, and they were avidly collected by elites from both Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey. This fine mid-sixteenth-century manuscript of Nizami’s Khamsa (Quintet) includes fourteen nearly full-page illustrations, whose heavily patterned architectural interiors and lively multifigural ensembles are characteristic of Shiraz painters at their best.
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Bibliography

  • Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.

  • Pal, Pratapaditya, ed.  Islamic Art:  The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection.  Los Angeles:  Museum Associates, 1973.