Moʿin Moṣavver | Manuscripts | Shahnama of Ferdowsi
Manuscript E

Questionable attributions

Ideally pages from a dispersed manuscript can be identified as coming from the same manuscript by the commonality of certain features -- the size of the text area, the calligraphy style, the number of lines of calligraphy on a full page -- and to a lesser extent the page size, painting syle, and other idiosyncracies. The pages from this manuscript have been widely dispersed, and vital information about any individual page is often dependent on past catalogers, which all too often is vague or dimensions have been excessively rounded off. The pages shown here have been attributed to this manuscript by previous authors, but in our view lack enough substantiation to make the attribution suspect.

Robert Eng
Last Updated: April 27, 2011. Originally published: April 22, 2011.