An illustrated leaf from Hafiz-i Abru’s Majma‘ al-Tawarikh: death of the Samanid Emir Nuh (II) ibn Mansur, Afghanistan, Herat, Timurid, circa 1425-26

Émile Tabbagh and Parish Watson, Paris and New York, by 1926 (complete manuscript)

Émile Tabbagh, Paris, by 1933 (individual folios)

Thence by descent, from whom purchased by the present owner 25 November 2021

1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition, Philadelphia (unpublished)

The Samanid Emir Nuh (II) ibn Mansur died on 13 Rajab 387 AH/22 July 997 AD, here sympathetically rendered by the painter. The same scene is included in the Topkapi Palace Library manuscript of the Majma‘ al-Tawarikh (inv. no.Hazine 1653 f.280a). A folio from the present manuscript depicting Nuh ibn Mansur in battle is in the Yale University Art Gallery (inv. no.1983.94.13).

Mohammad Reza Ghiasian considers the present folio to belong to a group of sixty-five leaves in the Majma‘ al-Tawarikh reused from an Ilkhanid manuscript of Rashid al-Din’s Jami‘ al-Tawarikh copied circa 1310-20, which formed the basis of Hafiz-i Abru’s text. While the text on these folios was copied under the Ilkhans, the paintings were added in the scriptorium of Shah Rukh in Herat.