Hamdullah bin Ak-Shams al-Din Hamdi (1449-1503), Yusuf u Zuleykha, poetry, with eight later illustrations, Ottoman Turkey, probably Constantinople, late 16th Century

Ottoman Turkish manuscript on paper, 168 leaves, 17 lines to the page written in two columns of nasta'liq script in black ink, double intercolumnar rules in gold, inner margins ruled in gold, catchwords in wide outer margins, titles written in nasta'liq script in gold, one illuminated headpiece in colours and gold, 8 miniatures in the Ottoman style probably added at a later date, Ottoman brown morocco, covers of gilt stencilled panels richly decorated with intertwining serrated leaves, cloudbands and floral motifs, with flap
197 x 125 mm.

Provenance
Hugo Friedmann (1901-45), Vienna (his bookplate); and thence by descent.
Acquired in Istanbul in June 1935 (his handwritten note on one doublure).
For another manuscript from Friedmann's collection, see lot 83.

The work, Yusuf u Zuleykha, is a well?known romantic masnavi about Joseph's adventure in Egypt with Potiphar's wife, composed in AH 897/AD 1491?92. Two copies, dated 15 October 1572 (MS Turk. e. 80) and 1546-47 (MS. Turk. e. 104), are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: see Gunay Kut, Supplementary Catalogue of Turkish Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford 2003, pp. 147?148, cat. no. 208. Also see E. Blochet, Bibliotheque Nationale: Catalogue des Manuscrits Turcs, 2 vols., Paris 1932-33, and C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1888, 169b.