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Bahram Gur, text folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi

Title	Bahram Gur, text folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi
Publication Date:	c. 1330
Type	Document
Language	Persian
Digital	Yes
Manuscript	Yes
Physical Dimensions	592 mm x 400 mm (height x width)
Library:	Chester Beatty
Record ID	Per 111.8
Library Location	Persian collection
Date	c. 1330
Notes	Bahram Gur, text folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi. Dateable to the era of late Mongol Ilkhanid rule in Iran (the 1330s), a dramatic but fragmentary manuscript known as the Great Mongol Shahnama (and also as the Demotte Shahnama) is today dispersed across many international collections, including eleven folios in the Chester Beatty collection. Heavily worn, the manuscript was extensively restored in late nineteenth-century Tehran, probably at the Gulistan Palace library: the folios were trimmed, remargined, and renumbered, with missing text supplemented on new paper folios, written out by Tehran calligraphers following fourteenth-century style. At the start of the twentieth century, the manuscript was sold to a Paris-based dealer, Georges Demotte (d. 1923), reportedly with another dealer Dikran Kelekian as his buying-partner. From 1913, Demotte began selling single illustrated folios cut from the manuscript to art collectors and museums, in Europe and the USA: his main focus was on the paintings, for which there was strong market interest. The original fourteenth-century text folios (those without paintings, such as this one Per 111.8) rarely survived this process. By the time Beatty bought his eleven folios (CBL Per 111.1 to Per 111.11, seven with paintings) from Demotte's firm in October 1937, he would have known the so-called "Demotte Shahnama" well: its fifty-eight (known) illustrated folios had been widely exhibited and published. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian text in naskh script, with three framed captions (Bahram Gur learns of the Khaqan's deeds; Bahram Gur goes to war; Bahram Gur writes a letter to Nersi, on recto), and one further caption (Nersi receives Bahram Gur, on verso), from a dispersed Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi, Tabriz, Iran, c. 1330, folio remargined and repaired, Tehran, Iran, c. 1880-1900.
Materyal	Paper (material), Pigment (material), Ink (material), Gold
Nesne Adı	Folio / Bi-Folio (Codex)
Yazı Tipi	Naskh script, Thuluth script

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Bahram Gur, text folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi

Publication Date c. 1330

Type Document

Language Persian

Digital Yes

Manuscript Yes

Physical Dimensions 592 mm x 400 mm (height x width)

Library Chester Beatty

Record ID Per 111.8

Library Location Persian collection

Date c. 1330

Notes Bahram Gur, text folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi. Dateable to the era of late Mongol Ilkhanid rule in Iran (the 1330s), a dramatic but fragmentary manuscript known as the Great Mongol Shahnama (and also as the Demotte Shahnama) is today dispersed across many international collections, including eleven folios in the Chester Beatty collection. Heavily worn, the manuscript was extensively restored in late nineteenth-century Tehran, probably at the Gulistan Palace library: the folios were trimmed, remargined, and renumbered, with missing text supplemented on new paper folios, written out by Tehran calligraphers following fourteenth-century style. At the start of the twentieth century, the manuscript was sold to a Paris-based dealer, Georges Demotte (d. 1923), reportedly with another dealer Dikran Kelekian as his buying-partner. From 1913, Demotte began selling single illustrated folios cut from the manuscript to art collectors and museums, in Europe and the USA: his main focus was on the paintings, for which there was strong market interest. The original fourteenth-century text folios (those without paintings, such as this one Per 111.8) rarely survived this process. By the time Beatty bought his eleven folios (CBL Per 111.1 to Per 111.11, seven with paintings) from Demotte's firm in October 1937, he would have known the so-called "Demotte Shahnama" well: its fifty-eight (known) illustrated folios had been widely exhibited and published. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian text in naskh script, with three framed captions (Bahram Gur learns of the Khaqan's deeds; Bahram Gur goes to war; Bahram Gur writes a letter to Nersi, on recto), and one further caption (Nersi receives Bahram Gur, on verso), from a dispersed Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi, Tabriz, Iran, c. 1330, folio remargined and repaired, Tehran, Iran, c. 1880-1900.

Materyal Paper (material), Pigment (material), Ink (material), Gold

Nesne Adı Folio / Bi-Folio (Codex)

Yazı Tipi Naskh script, Thuluth script