Sa'di and the Safavid: The Material Culture of a Treasured Persian Manuscript Now at UO
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Date
2019
Authors
Louie, Elmira
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The Burgess MS 43 manuscript of Sai'di's Gulistan and Bustan, now at University of Oregon Special Collections Archive, was created in 1615 CE in Persia. It was later transported to Europe, where the original Persian leather binding was swapped for a more European style: soft, red velvet with two silver clasps. According to a book seller's catalogue entry, this manuscript once belonged to John Ruskin, the preeminent art theorist of Victorian England. His view of a Persian manuscript eloquently depicts the richly decorated first page, "wrought with wreathed azure and gold, and soft green and violet, and ruby and scarlet, into one field of pure resplendence. It is wrought to delight the eyes only; and it does delight them." The intricate illuminated ornaments open a window to the Safavid dynasty. In this paper, I will reconstruct the manuscript's original historical and cultural context, returning us to seventeenth-century Shiraz.
Description
Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: (2019). 9 p.