Abstracta Iranica

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Stanley, Tim
« The Kevorkian-Kraus-Khalili Shahnama. The History, Codicology, and Illustrations of a Sixteenth-century Shirazi Manuscript », in : Robert Hillenbrand, ed., Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, pp. 85-98.

Tim Stanley examines a mid-16th century copy of the Šāh-nāme produced originally in Šīrāz, and on the basis of various annotations, notes, and seal impressions narrates its complicated history as it changed numerous hands from Iran to India, and later from India to the private collections of Hans P. Kraus, Hagop Kevorkian, and ultimately Nasser D. Khalili. On the basis of marginal descriptions, Stanley corroborates that there had indeed been 21 folios with illustrations but that five leaves were later removed and dispersed. Likewise, the manuscript was rebound and reordered during its Mughal tenure, and significant portions of the text – over 5,000 lines of verse – were removed and lost during this phase. The technical aspects of this article intensify considerably as the author proceeds to analyze the miniature illustrations and their use of “inner” and “outer” space, and their relation to one another on the basis of “break lines”, etc. The decision to illustrate Lohrāsp’s accession midway through the text, Stanley argues somewhat ambitiously, is reflective of an “honouring of Zoroastrianism” which heralds the reign of a ruler who is allegedly responsible for the “transition from the pagan era to the Zoroastrian era”.

Colin Mitchell

Pour citer cette recension

Colin Mitchell. Stanley, Tim, « The Kevorkian-Kraus-Khalili Shahnama. The History, Codicology, and Illustrations of a Sixteenth-century Shirazi Manuscript », in : Robert Hillenbrand, ed., Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, pp. 85-98., Abstracta Iranica [En ligne], Volume 28, mis en ligne le : 18 septembre 2007. URL http://abstractairanica.revues.org/document11642.html. Consulté le 7 janvier 2009.