One page of Ferdowsi’s Shahnama is expected to be auctioned this month

A page from one of the world’s most important Shahnameh manuscripts is being auctioned in London later this month.

The auction in London will start on October 26 and the sheet will sell for a possible price of £40 to £6 million.

This manuscript belonged to the second Safavid king, Shah Tahmas, and is considered one of the most important works of art in the world.

The landmark sale comes at a time when the haircut, depicted in the Shahnameh, has become one of the symbols associated with the uprising of the Iranian people, especially women.

In Shahnama, there is a rich reflection of the ancient Iranian society and civilization and its narration is narrative.

Abul Qasim Ferdowsi wrote the Shahnameh in the late 10th century and early 11th century CE, and it has always been considered one of Iran’s most important literary works over the past 1,000 years. He has been honored many times by the various ruling families of Iran.

It took 33 years to set it up. During this period, the Samanid dynasty, which promoted the greatness and expansion of Iran’s culture and civilization. Later Ghaznavid rule was found to lack this feature and the story of such creation is itself a narrative of ups and downs in Iranian history.

The Safavids, who came to power in the early 16th century, paid special attention to Iran’s history and art from the beginning. Shah Ismail, the founder of this dynasty and the father of Shah Tahmas, ordered the preparation of a document in the name of the Shah. The same king who chose the names of his children from this book, including Shah Tahmas.

The manuscript’s 759 pages and 258 paintings are considered one of the most magnificent manuscripts, using gold and special decorations. The work was produced in the Royal Gallery in Tabriz and is believed to have been commissioned by Sultan Muhammad Nagar, who was one of Master Behzad’s pupils.

In 1568, this book was presented to the then ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Selim II, and it was taken to Edirne, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Shahnama of Shah Tahmas remained in the library of Topa Kapi Palace for more than three centuries, but gradually (probably during the turmoil of the early 20th century) it fell into European hands and became part of the collection of Baron Edmund James D. Rothschild. Became. In 1959 the family sold it to Arthur Houghton Jr., a wealthy American industrialist who later became head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The book’s binding was opened in 1964 so that a Harvard University researcher could photocopy its pages. Houghton then donated various pages to various museums, including the Metropolitan, and apparently sold some to various sources. After Houghton’s death in 1994 some of the pages were sold to Iran in a covert operation, and Houghton’s family, in return, received Willem de Kooning’s painting ‘Three Women’ from Iran for $20 million.

Now a page from this historic book has come up for auction at Sotheby’s in London. This page was sold by Houghton in 1988, and in it we see Rustam rescuing his horse, Rukhsh, from Afrasiab, Shah Turan, and the enemy army of Iran.

The record for the most expensive sale of a manuscript from the Islamic world in the history of the world is currently held by another page from the Shahnama of King Tahmas, which was sold at Sotheby’s in 2011 for £7.4 million. The page is now housed in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada.

This sale can be considered one of the most important events in the art market this month (Sotheby’s).

Previously, 14 pages of the book were sold at a Christie’s auction in 1988 for between £150,000 and £200,000. But the rest of the pages is one of the last pages of the work that a person owns.

Benedict Carter, head of the Islamic and Indian art department at Sotheby’s, said the Shahnama has fewer than 10 pages and its whereabouts are unknown, which is why there is a stir every time a page comes on the market.

Consequently, the sale of this work can be considered one of the most important events of the art market this month.