Maktabi Shirazi, Layla and Majnun, with nine illustrations, Persia, in the city of Hamadan, late 19th Century (in the month of Dhi'l-qa'dah)

Persian manuscript on paper, some leaves with Qajar embossed stamp depicting the Lion and the Sun, 61 leaves, six lines to the page written in fine shikasteh in three columns in couplets, nine paintings, seal impressions of former owners, brown calf gilt
215 x 138 mm.

Provenance
Private UK collection.

The subjects of the illustrations are:
Majnun taken by his father to visit the Ka'ba.
Ibn Salam sees Layla and falls in love with her.
Ibn Salam and Layla together.
Majnun visiting Layla in her tent, with a shepherd and flock including a human-headed sheep in foreground.
Majnun in the wilderness surrounded by animals.
Majnun visited by his father in the wilderness[?]
Majnun lamenting at Layla's grave in the wilderness.
Layla's coffin surrounded by her family.
The graves of Majnun and Layla visited by a youth.

Maktabi Shirazi was a Shirazi poet of the late 15th-early 16th Century, who composed his Layla and Majnun in AH 895/AD 1489-90. There is no record of his actual name, and he is recorded only with his pen name Maktabi, because his main profession was school teacher (maktab). He is also recorded as having travelled to Khorasan, India and Arabia and is buried in Shiraz. According to Richard he died circa 1510, and dedicated the work to Amir-Zada Qasim (see F. Richard, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans, Volume II, Le Supplement Persan, Rome 2013, pp. 851-52, no. 647.

Rypka comments: 'Nizami found an uncommonly large number of imitators of his poem Layla u Majnun, in Iran and in the areas falling under the influence of Persian culture – in Turkey, Central Asia, India and so on. They imitate his form, choice of material, treatment of analogous and sometimes like subjects, preferably in the same Khamsa form. Amir Khusrau, the first in point of time, occupies a prominent place and he in his turn also influences his successors. Among these, Maktabi of Shiraz approaches his model most nearly in his admirable epic poem Layla u Majnun, which dates from AH 895/AD 1489–90 and is a work that even achieves new effects by means of lyrical ghazal insertions. Tremendous admiration for Nizami is reflected also in the miniatures and in the minor arts in general, where the themes are for the great part taken from the Khamsa.' See J. Rypka, History of Persian Literature, Dordrecht 1968, pp. 98 and 213.

A fine version of this text was offered in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 24th April 2018, lot 144.

The manuscript bears the seal impression of Muhammad Taqi.

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