Khawja Shams ud-Din Muhammah Hafez’e Shirazi, known as ‘Hafez’, Ghazaliyyat, in Farsi, illuminated manuscript on paper [Safavid Persia, dated Rajab, 1194 AH (1789 AD)]

Khawja Shams ud-Din Muhammah Hafeze Shirazi, known as Hafez, Ghazaliyyat, in Farsi, illuminated manuscript on paper [Safavid Persia, dated Rajab, 1194 AH (1789 AD)]

single volume, 166 leaves, textually complete, first and final leaves of text torn with loss, replaced in manuscript facsimile, single and double column, 14 lines of black nastaliq, headings in blue, gilt polychrome borders to opening two leaves, delicate spiralling vines decorating the text throughout, in green, orange and blue, catchwords throughout, many outer margins repaired, rarely affecting text, ink ownership inscriptions to endpapers and pastedown, bookplate pasted to first free endpaper, nineteenth-century manuscript description of text in French tipped into final free endpaper, 215 by 120 mm.; in fine contemporary morocco boards, central medallions with decoupé medallions set against orange background and heightened in gilt, borders also ruled in gilt, a little rubbed, attractive copy

Provenance: From the library of Sergei Alexandrovich Sobolevskii (1803-1870) of Moscow, businessman, traveller and author of humourous and sometimes obscene poetry, as well as a close friend of Puskin from childhood (see G. West The collections of Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevskii (1803-1870), in Libraries within the library : the origins of the British Library's printed collections, 2009): with his armorial Bibliotheca Sobolewskiana bookplate pasted to front free endpaper; then to G. Springer: his inscription dated 1899 added to upper pastedown; and Jeane Jaharan: inscription dated 21 Feb. 1923 to front free endpaper, the last with personal notes on book tipped onto final free endpaper.

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