Rezvan E. Oriental Manuscripts of Karl Fabergé. II: Rāgamālā Miniatures of the Album (Muraqqa‘) (Part Two) // Manuscripta Orientalia. Vol. 7. No. 3. September 2001. P. 39—45.
The most important jewelers of the nineteenth century —
Lui Cartier, Henri Vever and Karl Faberge — all had collections
of Eastern manuscripts and miniatures that inspired
them to create the marvels of their art that today adorn the
world’s great museums and private collections. These outstanding
artists and jewelers most likely did not fully understand
the ancient traditions that inspired the examples of
Eastern miniature and calligraphy in their collections. But it
was undoubtedly the profundity and power of this tradition
that contained the bewitching energy that springs to life
anew in their marvelous works. Today we continue the
study and publication of rāgamālā genre miniatures from
the album (muraqqa‘) of Karl Faberge that we began in the
preceding issue.
Albums of the type under discussion here represent
a specific genre that contains the most varied materials. The
researcher who studies them must be prepared for unexpected
discoveries. In the course of writing this article, for
example, reasons emerged to “shift” the dating of the earliest
materials some 300 years, from the sixteenth to the
thirteenth century. In the view of the Album’s compilers,
one of the calligraphy examples it contains (qiṭ‘a) is an
autograph by the outstanding Iraqi calligrapher Yāqūt
al-Musta‘ṣimī (1221–1298). This can only be confirmed
or refuted by a comparative analysis of several samples
created by the qalam of one of the greatest Muslim calligraphers.
In the preceding article we discussed in detail three
folios from the Album that contain miniatures that stem
from the rāgamālā tradition. We continue this description below...
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