A illustrated leaf from a Persian manuscript of Qazwini's Aja'ib al-Makhluqat with coloured drawings of birds in their natural habitat and a human-headed animal Safavid Persia, Isfahan, mid-17th Century
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Find your local specialistA illustrated leaf from a Persian manuscript of Qazwini's Aja'ib al-Makhluqat with coloured drawings of birds in their natural habitat and a human-headed animal
Safavid Persia, Isfahan, mid-17th Century
Safavid Persia, Isfahan, mid-17th Century
270 x 165 mm.
Footnotes
Other leaves from the same manuscript were sold at Sotheby's, Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 9th October 1979, lots 209-217; 7th-8th July 1980, lot 205; and 28th April 1981, lots 237-238 and 240-242. For another leaf formerly in the Binney Collection, see B. W. Robinson, Persian and Mughal Art, Colnaghi, London 1976, p. 153, no. 54i.
The image of a bird recto (no name is given) is one which lives in the Red Sea and which is said to sense any danger to ships at sea and to warn sailors. Below this is an image of Shaykh al-Yahud, a water creature of the Red Sea with a human face and white beard, whose body is hairy but otherwise like that of a frog. The images of birds verso are shiqraq, a green magpie (top); and shahrban [?], a water bird resembling a stork in body but with shorter legs (bottom).