Gulistan of Sa'adi, with miniatures painted by Muhammad Jan Ibn Muhammad 'Ashuri, Delhi, India, dated 1238 AH/1823 AD

Persian manuscript on paper, 165 leaves, 10 lines to the page written in small nasta'liq script in black ink, significant words picked out in red, gold interlinear rules, inner margins ruled in gold, red and blue, occasional catchwords, pages with miniatures with outer margins decorated with polychrome floral and vegetal motifs heightened with gold, opening illuminated double-page frontispiece, with text in cloudbands against a gold ground, 14 full-page miniature paintings, contemporary brown morocco binding with gilt panels decorated with stamped foliate motifs

In very good overall condition, spine needs repairing but otherwise illumination fresh, vivid and bright, pages clean, the occasional wormhole but otherwise good, as viewed.
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This charming manuscript of Sa'adi's Gulistan, or 'Rose Garden' is richly illustrated and illuminated in the Delhi style of the early nineteenth century. For comparable manuscripts produced in good quality workshops during this period see, for example, an illustrated Padshahnameh now in the British Library (Losty 1982, p.134) and also Manuscripts from the Himalayas and the Indian Subcontinent, Sam Fogg Rare Books, 1996, pp.154-6, cat.no.174. The Gulistan is divided into the following chapters, accompanied in the present work by finely executed illustrations:

1. The Manners of Kings
2. On the Morals of Dervishes
3. On the Excellence of Content
4. On the Advantages of Silence
5. On Love and Youth
6. On Weakness and Old Age
7. On the Effects of Education
8. On Rules of Conduct in Life