Persian MS 862 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)
Persian Manuscripts
Contents
The conclusion appears to combine isolated fragments.
Physical Description
Collation
Condition
Layout
Written in 2 columns with 12 lines in the centres, with occasional obliquely written passages. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.
Hand(s)
Written in hasty but clear black nasta‘līq hand with red subheaders.
Decoration
Illumination: Folio 1b bears gold cartouche bearing a basmalla surmounted by a scalloped domed headpiece, with a gilt ground, central palemtte designs, infilled and surmounted by further gilt floral scrollwork, surrounded by gilt marginal ruling with fishscale designs and green zig-zags.
101 × 86 mm.
Ruling: Text margins ruled in gold outlined with thin single internal and double external black lines surrounded by single blue lines.
Marginalia: Notes in various hands of former owners including Keene and Forbes, some of which indicate the metres.
Inscriptions: The right pastedown numbered ‘D. F. 29’ and priced ‘£4.14.6’ in pencil at bottom, both pertaining to former owner Duncan Forbes' catalogue.
Bookplates and pasted items: The right pastedown bears a pasted catalogue entry cut from William Baynes and Son:
‘231 DEEVANI Sayib- The Odes of Saeeb; 8vo splendidly bound in crimson morocco, pp. 804-. A beautiful MS., most elegantly written, the text inlaid in modern beautiful 6l 6s.’
The left pastedown bears ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ bookplate with pencilled shelfmark the ‘1/I’ and an early Bibliotheca Lindesiana label:
‘Persian MSS No. 68’, with the number crossed out and ‘851’ written aside.
Binding
J. B. B. Clarke describes the present binding, hence necessarily rebound before 1835. While it lacks his binder's ticket, the style closely comports with others volumes bound by the London firm of Charles Lewis (1786-1836).
Leather jointed endpapers prepared of yellow wove paper stiff-leaved with bright blue coated upper flyleaves added to the beginning and end. Resewn on on four recessed cords laced into the pasteboards. Edges trimmed and gilded, then decorative front-bead endbands worked in dark blue silk threads at head and tail. Bound in full crimson straight-grained Morocco goatskin leather hollow-backed, over two false bands on the spine, tight jointed, and with wide turn-ins.
Boards elegantly gold-tooled with foliate scrollwork cornerpieces and stylized trefoils at the joins (the latter also seen on Persian MS 27). All bounded by exterior margins of single and double fillet lines with stylized trefoils at the joins. Board edges beard double fillets, while the interior dentelled bear palmette fleurons in the corners, connected pairs of single thin fillet lines joined at the leaves, with single lines also connecteding the bases, with dots on the joins. Spine panels bear mitred triple pallet rectangles, with the triple single lines terminating in bold auricular palmettes. Titled:
‘DEEVAN I
SAHEEB’.
231 × 138 × 51 mm.
Handle binding with caution. In fair but stable condition, with extensive wear to the exterior joints and board edges.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Acquired Henry George Keene (1781-1864), who impressed his Anglo-Persian seal and autograph on la dated 1802.
Brought to London by Keene while on furlough, and sold to Methodist minister Rev. Adam Clarke (1762–1832), as per his note dated 1803. After his death, his son J. B. B. Clarke (d. 1855) inherited the volume and describes its present state in a catalogue published in 1835, p. 149, no. 69.
The next year on 20 June 1836, Clarke's son auctioned his father's collection through the London firm of Sotheby & Son where bookseller John Cochran purchased it for £1 13 shillings.
Probably sold by Cochran to bookseller William Baynes and Son who advertise it in their catalogue for £4 13 shillings that same year, with the same entry pasted on the left doublure.
Probably sold by William Baynes and Son to King's College Professor of Oriental Languages Duncan Forbes (1798–1868). Forbes later described the volume in his 1866 catalogue, valued at £6 16s 6d, before he sold his manuscript collection to his publisher W. H. Allen & Co. in exchange for an annuity. Subsequently sold by that firm to Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) in 1866
Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1901 from James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913).
Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1908 to the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
Record Sources
Bibliographical description based on an index created by Reza Navabpour circa 1993, derived from a manuscript catalogue by Michael Kerney, circa 1890s, concisely published as Bibliotheca Lindesiana, Hand-list of Oriental Manuscripts: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, 1898.
Manuscript description by Jake Benson in 2024 with reference to the manuscript in hand.
Availability
To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit Using the Special Collections Reading Rooms. For any other enquiries please email uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk.
Bibliography
Funding of Cataloguing
Iran Heritage Foundation
The John Rylands Research Institute
The Persian Heritage Foundation
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