Beschreibung:

Khawaja Shams ud'Din Muhammad Hafez'e Shirazi 'Hafiz', Ghazaliyaat, in Farsi, illuminated manuscript on paper [Safavid Persia (possibly Tabriz), c. 1650] 200 leaves, complete, catch-words throughout, 12 lines black nasta'liq, single and double column, gold and polychrome illuminated headpiece opening the text, opening two leaves with interlinear colouring in gold decorated with colourful floral sprays, decorative banners and fillers throughout, with floral vines heightened in turquoise, orange, red and blue, catch-words throughout, leaves in multi-coloured ruling, final leaf laid-down, some inscriptions to front free endpaper and few nineteenth-century marginal annotations, eighteenth-century ownership stamp and annotation Soleyman to front free endpaper, some light water-staining along lower edges, a few ink stains or smudges, overall clean and attractive condition, 224 by 140mm.; contemporary blind stamped and tooled calf over pasteboards, covers with block-stamped central panels (with horizontal divide in leather along centres) surrounded by smaller border panels, all in gilt, inner covers with central stamped medallions and corner pieces in blue and green, decorated with orange and gold filigree, possibly missing original flap, outer edges repaired, lightly rubbed and scuffed A charming and delicately illuminated volume of the Ghazals of Hafiz, a strict poetic form comparable to the English sonnet. The binding present is notably fine and distinctively close to Haldane's example 82 (Islamic Bookbindings, 1982, p. 79) with the horizontal divide across the centre of the covers.