THE BOOK OF KINGS
FERDOWSĪ.
Shāhnāmah.
Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].
Large folio (385 x 285mm), pp. 1056; text in Persian nasta’liq in double columns within borders of foliage, birds and mythical beasts, with ten full-page illustrations reproducing miniatures by Moḥammad Bahrāmi; a very good copy in the publisher’s binding of black calf-backed decorated boards, spine titled in gilt, dustjacket; dustjacket slightly torn at head of spine, a few short tears and some minor fraying elsewhere.
A lavishly produced edition of the Shāhnāmah (or Shahnameh), rare in the dustjacket, one of a thousand copies printed to mark the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. Ferdowsi’s celebrated and vast epic poem provides a history of the kings of Persia from mythical times down to the seventh century.
‘In 1971, a luxury edition of Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma, based on the famous 19th-century edition of Jules Mohl and under the supervision of Moḥammad Ja‘far Maḥjub, was produced. Jawād Šarifi, Moḥammad Bahrāmi, and ‘Ali-Aṣqar Ma‘ṣumi were respectively the artists for the calligraphy, miniatures, and ink drawings of this fine edition. The bookbinding and the artwork of the cover were done by Ḥosayn Eslāmiān. The miniatures were printed in 16 colours, and the text itself in six colours’ (Encyclopaedia Iranica).
This is one of the most significant productions of the Amir Kabir publishing house founded by Abdorrahim Jafari in 1949 and confiscated during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, chose the edition as a gift for foreign dignitaries who attended his extravagant celebrations at Persepolis in October of 1971. Despite the association with the Shah, the publisher dated the work using the Hijri year (1350) and not the new imperial date (2535) stipulated in a royal edict.
