Johnson 54,30; Johnson 54,35-43; Johnson 54,45-46

J.54,30; J.54,35-43; J.54,45-46

Twelve illustrations to the book of fables ‘‘Iyar-i Danish.’

Mughal, c.1600.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

Gouache, some with gold; leaves rebacked with paper, obscuring any text on the reverse; in all but one case text, written in a neat cursive ‘nasta‘liq, is’ retained on the same side as the illustrations.

Note: The ‘‘Iyar-i Danish,’ ‘The Criterion of Knowledge’, is a Persian version of the ‘Kalilah va Dimnah,’ the Arabic translation by Ibn al-Muqaffa from the original Sanskrit of c.300 AD. The ‘Iyar i Danish’ was prepared by Akbar’s biographer Abu’l Fazl ibn Mubarak at the instruction of the emperor who considered the existing Persian version, the ‘Anvar-i Suhaili’ by Husain Va‘iz Kashifi, too florid. Abu’l Fazl completed the present version in AH996/AD1588, restoring the two prefaces of the Arabic version and rearranging the fables into fourteen chapters.

Johnson possessed an illustrated manuscript of the ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ (IO Isl 1403; Ethe 770), which contains miniatures by Lucknow artists. The present twelve leaves, purchased from a library according to the inscription on J.54, 40, were in some cases touched up and improved by Johnson’s Lucknow artists who used them as a basis for a larger series of illustrations comprising Johnson Album 54 in its entirety.

A closely related Mughal manuscript of the same text is now dispersed, the major portion of ninety-six illustrated leaves being in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (Arnold (1936), Ms.4, 12-21, and pls 38-47). Fifty-two other leaves are in the Cowasji Jehangir Collection (Ashton (1950), no.646, pl.123; Khandalavala (1952)).