One beautifully decorated copy of Jāmī's Yūsuf va Zulaykhā . — likely 16th century; likely Abulkhayrid Bukhara

Title

One beautifully decorated copy of Jāmī's Yūsuf va Zulaykhā . — likely 16th century; likely Abulkhayrid Bukhara

Shelfmark

MS. Whinfield 12

Place of origin

likely Abulkhayrid Bukhara

Date

likely 16th century

Language

Persian

Contents

Form

codex

Support

heavy cream-coloured ragstock decorated with gold and inks of varius colours

Physical extent

ii flyleaves + 153 folios

Hands

( folios 1a-145b and 148a-149b ) Script: Fine nasta‘līq in black ink with several captions in red and gold ink. Scribe unknown.

( folios 146a-147b and 150a ) Script: Nasta‘līq in black ink. Scribe unknown but in a coarser, later hand than the rest of the manuscript.

Decoration

Splendidly gilded margin frames with gold outlines coloured in in multiple coloured inks throughout.

Textboxes framed with thick painted borders overlayed with gold designs. Many of these have been covered with fine paper in various colours and designs ir order to secure paste-in textboxes which had come loose. These framed are further framed with thin borders in blue, green, gold, and black.

Edges of the paper are decorated win red with yellow and black lines and mango-shapes.

folio 1a: Gold and brown decorated headpiece with بسم لله الرحمن الرحیم in black ink, the words being apparently added post factum.

folio 57b: Illuminated miniature of Yūsuf being pulled up from the well.

folio 61a: Illuminated miniature of Yūsuf about to board the boat to Egypt.

folio 63b: Illuminated miniature of Yūsuf being sold at the slave market.

folio 97a: Marginal illustration of dragons, gryphons, foxes, and other creatures and vegetation. Also a margin column interspersed with vegetal designs in gold.

folio 97b: Illuminated miniature of Yūsuf cast out by Potiphar as Zulaykhā and the baby bear witness.

folio 103a : Illuminated miniature of Yūsuf seeing Zulaykhā again in the garden after his imprisonment has ended.

Acquisition

The Whinfield manuscripts were bequeathed to the Indian Institute, Oxford, in 1922, and later transferred to the Bodleian Library.

Provenance

The collections of Sir Edward Henry Whinfield, d. 1922.

Subject

Love poetry, Persian

Sufi poetry, Persian

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