The impossible codex that no one will ever possess again
This heavy, thick codex containing ‘The Book of Kings’ (Shahnameh) is one of the masterpieces of world literature. Written by one of the greats of world literature in more than 50,000 verses by the poet Firdusi between 982 and 1014, it is the national epic of Iran, i.e. Persia. The work covers the history and legend of the Persian people from creation to their conquest by the Arabs, whose victory brought about a religious change by imposing Islam.
‘The Book of Kings’ is not only a literary gem, but also a treasure in terms of the source of Iranian legends, already inseparable from the country’s culture; a monument that certified the facts at the time of the conquest and saved the historical memory of Iran before the conquest.
It belonged to four sultans, to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, to the tycoon Arthur A. Houghton
It is now in private collections and museums in America, Europe and the Middle East
Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp
The Persian Book of Kings
Date of production: 1522 to 1535.
Format: approximately 47 x 32 cm.
Language /Extension: Persian, 360 pages.
Content: History of the Persian Empire from its legendary beginnings to its decline following the Arab invasion, AD 651, in 50,000 double verses written between 982 and 1014.
Author: Abul-Kasim Mansur Firdusi (940-c 1020).
Unique world edition with gold leaf: Limited to 150 fine facsimile copies, for the first time, life-size, numbered and authenticated.
Independent volume of studies: Historical and artistic introduction and identification of the illustrations.
Illustrations: 258 large, refined full-page gold-illuminated miniatures and thousands of gold watermarks, some with beautifully large geometric figures.
Donor: Gift from Shah Ismail to his first-born son, Prince Tahmasp. Work began in 1522 under the reign of the shah and was continued by his son until the 1530s.
Location: MET – Aga Khan Foundation Canada – the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art – Museum of Islamic Art, Doha – Qatar, the David Collection – Copenhagen, Tareq Rajab Museum – Kuwait, Virginia Museum of fine Arts – C. Williams Fund, Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Museum fūr Islamic Kunst – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Ebrahimi Family Collection, private collections and museums in America, Europe and the Middle East – National Museum of Tehran, Iran.
Artists: Sultan Muhamad and workshop, Mir Musavvir, Agha Mirak, Mira Ali, Mir Sayyid Ali, Muzzaffar Ali, among others.
Copier: The famous shah Mahmud an-Nishapuri.
Previous owners: The manuscript in 1800 was in the library of Sultan Selim III in Istanbul, where it probably arrived in 1576 as a gift from the Persian shah Tahmasp following the enthronement of Sultan Murad III. In 1903, it appeared in Paris as the property of Baron Edmond de Rothschild. In 1959, the codex was acquired by the American collector Arthur A. Houghton. He subsequently gave 78 folios to the MET and sold the rest to private collections and museums in America, Europe and the Middle East – National Museum of Tehran.
Unique fine facsimile edition that brings together all the full-size illustrations illuminated with gold leaf
Every Persian sovereign possessed, as an imperial relic, a manuscript of the Shahnama
None of them, however, is so splendidly and sumptuously decorated and adorned with so many miniatures as the royal book we have selected, the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp.
It is the most beautiful and lavishly illustrated manuscript of this text, produced for the Safavid Shah Tahmasp, who ruled Iran from 1524 to 1576.
The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp manuscript contains the most significant painting in all Persian art
With the illustration of The Court of Gayumar, Firdusi’s Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp Codex of Shah Tahmasp contains the most significant painting in all Persian art. The genius of Sultan Muhamad’s painting has assimilated and utilised the incredibly rich legacy of Persian workshop libraries to transform the terrestrial world and the world beyond into a harmony of hanging rocks and Chinese landscapes. Each mountain peak contained in lapis lazuli, violet or sulphur yellow harbours a secret essence and fuses these spiritual symbols into a realm of magic. As if transpiring in a dream: the world in a vibrant conglomerate.
The 258 miniatures show the development of Safavid painting from its beginnings in 1520 to its maturity around 1535 and its unsurpassed mastery.
The Court of Gayumar.
In 2011 a folio of Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp was sold for $12 million
On 6 April 2011, a page from Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp belonging to the collection of the prestigious American scholar Stuart Cary Welch, curator and collector of Islamic and Indian art, sold for £7.4 million – $12 million at Sotheby’s London.
Universally acknowledged as one of the supreme illustrated manuscripts of any period or culture an among the greatest works of art in the world
According to Sotheby’s auction house, Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp is “universally acknowledged as one of the supreme illustrated manuscripts of any period or culture an among the greatest works of art in the world ”
Why buy the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp fine facsimile from Patrimonio Ediciones?
It is the only fine facsimile edition, of exquisite and unequalled quality, of the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, reproduced in real size. It is also the only one that uses gold foil in all its illustrations and text pages refinedly decorated with geometrical figures and illuminated with gold both inside and outside the folios.
The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp is “universally acknowledged as one of the supreme illustrated manuscripts of any period or culture an among the greatest works of art in the world “.
The Shahnama Codex of Shah Tahmasp was commissioned by Shah Ismail
The monumental codex of the founder of the Safavid dynasty was commissioned in 1522 by Shah Ismail. The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp of Firdusi was intended as a gift for his son and successor, Prince Tahmasp. Just turned 9 years old, he had just returned from the court of Herat to the capital Tabriz.
In 1499, the Safavid Ismail, at the age of 12, succeeded for the first time in defeating the mighty Turkmen of the White Ram. No doubt a feat comparable to the events narrated in the national epic poem. Ismail subsequently founded an empire stretching from Herat, hitherto the capital of the Timurids, to Baghdad. Shah Ismail was a skilful statesman, a military genius, a great patron of the arts and a writer of mystical verse.
During adolescence, his son Tahmasp must have sought in art a kind of refuge for his soul, for his years were filled with wars and family feuds.
The Metropolitan Museum in New York is fortunate to own 78 of the 258 illustrations in this text.
Thanks to the generosity of the Iranian-American community and the annual NoRuz at the Met benefit, which has been held in recent years at the Metropolitan, all of the illustrations from Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp were published in 2011.
Now for the first time in exquisite and unparalleled quality in full-size fine facsimile in colour using gold foil and including the straight and reversed folios held at the Met, in a single volume. These illustrations, held in collections in America, Europe and the Middle East, may never be physically reunited. This makes it the only full-size, unabridged fine facsimile edition and an important resource for lovers of 16th-century Persian painting.
Two decades of work by a legion of brilliant painters and artists
By producing, for the first and probably unique time, a fine facsimile of the Shahnama of the Shah Tahmasp in full-size illustrations using gold leaf, we hope that readers will experience something of the awe that the young Tahmasp must have felt when he opened his manuscript of the Shahnama of the Shah Tahmasp.
The original codex, like the present fine facsimile edition, was large, but not too large to lift. Inside its covers, stories and images of battles and encounters, kings and heroes, would have unfolded as the pages turned. Iranians still know all the twists and turns of many of these stories. For those unfamiliar with the Shahnama, its vivid illustrations are an excellent introduction.
Shah Tahmasp: The Renaissance of Persian fine arts and miniature
Tahmasp presided over the renaissance of the fine arts, which flourished under his patronage. The arts of Persian miniature, bookbinding and calligraphy, in fact, never received as much attention as they did during his rule. Safavid culture is often admired for its large-scale city planning and architecture.
When the young Shah Tahmasp took the throne Iran was in a grave state. But despite a weak economy, a civil war and foreign wars on two fronts, Tahmasp managed to retain his crown and maintain the territorial integrity of the empire, albeit much reduced since the time of his father Ismail.
During the first 30 years of his long reign, he was able to suppress internal divisions by exercising control over a strengthened central military force. In the war against the Uzbeks, he proved that the Safavids had become an empire of gunpowder. His tactics in dealing with the Ottoman threat eventually led to a treaty that preserved peace for 20 years.
