AN ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT OF THE DIWAN OF URFI WITH NINE MINIATURES AND A CONTEMPORARY LACQUER BINDING, COPIED BY SHAH MUHAMMAD DARABI AT MUHAMMADPUR, INDIA, DECCAN, BIJAPUR, DATED 1046 AH/ 1637 AD

Illustrated and illuminated Persian manuscript, 356 folios (miniatures now disbound and framed), ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper, text written in small nasta'liq script, numerous illuminated floral panels throughout, nine miniatures, contemporary floral lacquer binding

An inscription in a 19th century French hand on the flyleaf at the end states that the manuscript was purchased in Constantinople in 1896 from Admiral Hassan Pasha.
Adrienne Minassian, New York, 1955

Mughal Miniature Paintings from Two Private Collections, the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1959

Welch 1959, no.19. figs.22-29

Generally in fair condition. All miniatures and opening illuminated double page dis-bound and framed for exhibition. Bound manuscript text block: Generally in good and clean condition with very occasional minor defects. Pigments of illumination fresh and strong. Few folios with creases. Very occasional pages with minor paper repairs to margin areas. Miniatures: Generally in fair condition, but all have a patch of loss with associated paper repair and re-touching in lower centre. Double-page portrait frontispiece with cracking, repair and associated re-touching. All framed folios with gauze reinforcement backing, some with gauze reinforcement down central gutter. Binding: In relatively fair condition, with crackelure and some flaking of pigments, especially on flowers. Border cartouches of leather onlay slightly desiccated around edges. Doublures in generally fair condition, with some patches of loss of filigree, mostly in border cartouches.
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This is an important and very rare manuscript - the only known surviving illustrated manuscript from the reign of the great statesman and patron, Sultan Muhammad 'Adil Shah of Bijapur (r. 1627-57) . The colophon tells us that it was copied by the scribe Shah Muhammad Darabi "for the Kitabkhana of Pad-Shah .... Sultan Muhammad Adil Ghazi in the Dar al-Sultaneh of the resplendent capital Muhammadpur in the month of Sha'ban of the year 1046 (February 1637)". It also refers with great respect to Sayyid Nur Allah, who was a Bijapuri minister at the time, and it is possible that the manuscript was made on his orders for Sultan Muhammad (see Welch 1959, p.145).

The manuscript is decorated with numerous panels of illumination and nine miniatures. The miniatures are as follows:
1-2. Double-page frontispiece with portraits of Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah and a vizier (probably Sayyid Nur Allah)
3. Shirin and one of her maids in a garden
4-5. Khusraw's messenger before Shirin
6. Farhad gazing at a bust of Shirin while carving the rock-face at Mt. Bisitun
7. A prince enthroned
8. An elderly dervish with disciples in a field
9. Urfi, seated on the steps of a building, is offered wine by a woman

The style of the miniatures is typically Bijapuri. The faces of Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah and his vizier on the double-page frontispiece are quite distinctive portraits that appear on other contemporary Bijapuri paintings. The closest comparisons to the face of the Sultan occur on two works signed by Muhammad Khan - one a portrait of the Sultan standing in a landscape, the other a darbar scene - both in the City Palace Museum, Jaipur (see Zebrowski 1983, nos.94, 95, pp.126-7). The face of the vizier also occurs on the darbar scene, on the figure holding a scroll in the lower right corner. There are charming Deccani elements in other miniatures, such as the very jungly garden in which Shirin and her maid are situated, the architecture in the scene of Urfi seated on the steps, and the image of the dervish and his disciples in a landscape.

During the late 16th and 17th century many Safavid poets emigrated to India, and Urfi, whose real name was Jamal al-Din Muhammad and who was a native of Shiraz, was one of the most prominent. E.G. Browne describes him as probably the most famous and popular Persian poet of his century (the 16th). He moved to India at a relatively young age, arriving at Ahmadnagar during the reign of Sultan Murtaza Khan (r.1565-88), and was later in the entourage of the great bibliophile and patron Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan (see lot 104 for more information on this prominent Mughal character), through whom he was introduced to the Emperor Akbar. He remained in India for the rest of his career and died there in 1590. His poetry was also very popular in Turkey. For a discussion of the movement of Safavid poets to India see Ahmad 1976.

The manuscript is bound in an exquisite contemporary lacquer binding decorated with flowers, which may be the original, since, although the text block has been re-sewn, the binding fits the folio size exactly and the pages do not appear to have been trimmed. The flowers on the outer covers of the binding are rather Mughal in style, and are related to the floral designs that appear in the borders of several albums made for Shah Jahan at the Imperial Mughal atelier, which were exactly contemporary with this mansucript. This is not to attribute the binding to the Mughal school (although a Mughal-trained artist could have been present at Bijapur), but, as Zebrowski notes, Mughal princes and officers were present in large numbers in the Deccan at this period - Shah Jahan himself spent time there in the 1630s - and Mughal influence on painting was profoundly felt (Zebrowski 1983, p.122). A mid-17th-century Bijapuri flower study attributed to Haidar Ali and Ibrahim Khan is also close in style to the flowers on the lacquer covers. Interestingly though, the doublures of the binding, which are finely decorated with delicate filigree designs in gold, black and blue, owe more to Persian work of the 16th century, showing the continued influence of Iranian style.