Persian painting : the arts of the book and portraiture

This is a luxuriously illustrated catalogue of more than forty extraordinary Persian miniature paintings, illuminated manuscripts and elaborately decorated bookbindings in The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, dating from the period before the Mongol invasions (11th12th centuries CE) to the early 20th century. It includes rare examples from the pre-Mongol invasion period; fine illuminations of Quran manuscripts; Munis al-Ahrar , an important early fourteenth-century anthology by Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din al-Jajarmi; material from dispersed manuscripts of Firdawsis Shah-nameh; two previously unpublished copies of Qazwinis Ajaib al-Makhluqat; three copies of Nizamis Khamsah; Sadis Golestan; and Jamis Yusuf and Zulaykha and Subhat al-Abrar as well as paintings from dispersed Safavid and post-Safavid albums, and seventeenth- century bookbindings and oil paintings from the Zand and Qajar periods.