An illuminated leaf from a Gulistan of Sa’di, the borders attributed to Sultan Muhammad, Persia, Tabriz, Safavid, circa 1525-40

Ex-private collection, Germany, by 1983

Thence by descent

The exquisitely drawn qilins adorning the margins of this leaf each comprise sensitive studies of the animal in various poses. They come together to produce a playful scene, the fantastic wood inhabited by these fiery creatures who gallop through the trees and chase each other across the silver river.

A large portion of the manuscript was acquired by art historian P.W. Schulz in the early twentieth century. He exhibited a folio in the Meisterwerken Muhammadanische Kunst exhibition in 1910 (Sarre and Martin 1985, vol.I, pl.31) and F.R. Martin exhibited two from his own collection illustrated in The Miniature Painting of Persia, India and Turkey in 1912 (vol.II, pls.250-1). This suggests that the manuscript was already dispersed in the early twentieth century. Further leaves sold in these rooms, 6 April 2011, lots 75 and 76; see also Christie’s, London, 26 October 2017, lot 188; 31 March 2009, lot 179, and 7 October 2008, lot 155. Others can be found in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Leipzig, the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin (Kuhnel 1922, pls.55-56), the Kunstbibliothek, Berlin (Kroger and Heiden 2004, no.166, p.208); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no.14.607); the Keir Collection (Robinson et al. 1976, nos.III.220-2, pls.51 and 52), and the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. nos.2006.147 and 2006.147). For a further discussion of the manuscript from which these leaves originate, see the previous lot.