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[ALEXANDER THE GREAT]. CAMPBELL, James.

Tarikh'i Iskandar (The History of Alexander),

copied by Ibn Muhammad Khan Safdar 'Ali.

Stock Code
106371
Kabul, Afghanistan, 1874
£30,000

A fine illuminated manuscript with remarkable decorated marbled borders, of many varying designs and patterns. The use of marbled paper borders in a bound manuscript, as here, is very unusual. Marbled paper was often used to decorate album pages and calligraphic panels from the sixteenth century onwards and was very much a decorative tool elevating the design and appeal of a single artistic creation (i.e. a miniature or calligraphic exercise). The only other known textual manuscript to include marbled borders to this degree was copied by the same scribe as the present manuscript and was a translation of Voltaire's Histoire de l'Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand and Histoire de Charles XII, roi du Suede (Private collection, Christie's, Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 26th October 2017, lot 123); a reference to this secondary text is given in the preface of this manuscript 'Ibn Muhammad Khan Safdar 'Ali

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Description

Single volume, illuminated manuscript on paper with fine marbled paper borders, in Farsi, 119 leaves, complete, 336 x 230 mm; single column, 11 lines to the page written in neat nasta'liq script in black ink, occasional headings and significant words in blue, inner margins ruled in gold and blue, outer borders throughout decorated with fine marbling, one illuminated opening headpiece, one further illuminated heading; contemporary burgundy leather binding, blind-stamped with corner pieces to covers, a very handsome volume.

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Stock ID:106371

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