An illuminated folio from a manuscript of the Panj Ganj of Jami, Mughal patronage in the Deccan, 1012-15 AH/1603-07 AD, the text copied by Sultan Ali al-Mashhadi, Persia, Herat, 926 AH/1520 AD, the borders and illumination commissioned by Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan and executed by the artist Mushfiq

ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper, text written horizontally and diagonally in three columns of fine nasta'liq script in black and gold ink on cream paper, intercolumnar illumination in gold, each text area illuminated with three small triangular panels painted in colours and gold with birds, wide borders of blue (recto) and salmon-pink (verso) paper finely illuminated with birds, insects, cloud scrolls, meandering vines and flowering trees

Commissioned by Badi al-Zaman Mirza, ruler of Herat
Delivered to his son Mirza Ali Beg Amir Muhammad in 1520
Presented to Shah Isma’il Safavi in 1522-23
Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan, by 1603
Presented to Emperor Jahangir in 1624-25
Emperor Shah Jahan
Emperor Aurangzeb
Emperor Farrukhsiyar
Mirza Yaqub Khan, 1906-7
Georges Demotte, Paris and New York, early 20th century
Ex-private collection, France, 1940s
Christie's London, 20 October 1994, lot 9

This is an outstanding folio from the well-known and distinctive manuscript of the Panj Ganj (Khamseh) of the fifteenth century poet Jami. The manuscript was commissioned in the very early sixteenth century by Badi al-Zaman Mirza, ruler of Herat (mentioned in the Baburnameh as a leading chieftain under Sultan Husain Mirza) from the eminent master calligrapher Sultan Ali al-Mashhadi. Badi al-Zaman was taken to Constantinople in 1514, where he died in 1520. The parent volume of this folio is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. It contains two colophons attesting to Sultan Ali al-Mashhadi’s hand, one of which also mentions the date 15 Dhu’l-Hijjah 926 AH/26 November 1520, and a further disbound colophon page also records Sultan Ali as the scribe (Christie’s London, 18 October 1994, lot 8). On completion the manuscript was delivered to Badi al-Zaman’s son Mirza Ali Beg Amir Muhammad, who presented it to the first Safavid emperor Shah Isma’il (r.1502-24) in 1522-23. It presumably stayed in the royal Safavid library for some decades, but by 1603 had arrived in India, probably as part of the general movement of Persian artists and manuscripts to India in the second half of the sixteenth century, when the Mughal court was so actively patronising the arts of the book. But the manuscript did not immediately enter the royal Mughal library; rather, it was in the possession of Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan, the Mughal general and bibliophile who spent many years on military campaign in the Deccan during the later years of Akbar's reign and much of Jahangir's. As well as a military officer of great skill and success, he was also a great devotee of the arts of the book. One of his permanently employed artists, Mushfiq, was responsible for painting the small triangular panels on each page (one of the panels on folio 54r bears his name and the date 1012 AH/1603 AD) and the full-page miniatures. Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan presented this copy of the Panj Ganj to Emperor Jahangir while in Kashmir. It remained in the Mughal Royal Library for several generations, with seal impressions of Shah Jahan (r.1628-58), dated 1037 AH/1627-8 AD, and Aurangzeb (r.1658-1707), dated 1070 AH/1659-60 AD, featuring on folio 1r, along with an inscription indicating its transfer to Farrukhsiyar (r.1713-19). In 1906-7 it was in the collection of Mirza Yaqub Khan, and thereafter it belonged to the Paris and New York dealer Georges Demotte, from whom Alfred Chester Beatty acquired his volume in 1937.

The style of the borders and the small triangular panels is consistent throughout the manuscript, and Leach attributed all of them to Mushfiq, an attribution upheld by Elaine Wright (2008, p.223). This distinctive manner of border decoration appears on only two manuscripts: the present Panj Ganj and a Khamseh of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi, whose borders were also illuminated in the atelier of Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Or.fol.1278, see Seyller 1999, pp.273-283). Mushfiq was a talented and highly regarded artist who spent his whole career in the atelier of Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan. He was probably a house-born of the "Lord of Lords" (Verma, 1994 p.308), personally trained by Abd al-Rahim Khankhanan (Abd al-Baqi Nihavandi , Ma'asir-i Rahimi, dated 1026/1617; Seyller 1999, p.318). Signed examples of his work are rare, and are present in the collections of the British Museum, the Preussische Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., and the Free Library of Philadelphia (see Verma 1994, p.308).

Dispersed folios from this copy of the Panj Ganj are very rare. Only a handful of others are known: a single folio in the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva (formerly Pozzi Collection, see Geneva 1974, no.253); single folios sold at auction: Paris, Hotel George V, 30 October 1975, lot 472; Sotheby’s London, 10 October 1977, lot 154; 25 June 1985, lot 23; Christie’s London, 18 October 1994, lots 8 and 9 (including the present folio, part of lot 9); 4 October 2012, lot 25; and a bifolium from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection, sold in these rooms, 6 April 2011, lot 104.