Busacca Gallery

Illuminated Manuscript Page 13 ½" x 9 ½" Skillfully painted manuscript page depicting an equestrian scene, gouache on paper with gold pigments, surrounded by hand-lettered notations and florals in the margins, the verso with script and notations, unframed. less / Condition: Paper is stained, previous exposure to moisture, brittle edges separating, water staining, old adhesive verso. Recent scholarship has noted that, although surviving early examples are now uncommon, human figurative art was also a continuous tradition in Islamic lands in secular contexts (such as literature, science, and history); as early as the 9th century, such art flourished during the Abbasid Caliphate (c. 749-1258, across Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Mesopotamia, and Persia). The work was often divided between the main painter, who drew the outlines, and less senior painters who coloured in the drawing. In Mughal miniatures at least, a third artist might do just the faces. Then there might be the border paintings; in most books using them these are by far the largest area of painted material as they occur on text pages as well. The miniatures in a book were often divided up between different artists, so that the best manuscripts represent an overview of the finest work of the period. The scribes or calligraphers were normally different people, on the whole regarded as having a rather higher status than the artists - their names are more likely to be noted in the manuscript.

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. In the strictest definition, the term refers only to manuscripts decorated with either gold or silver; but in both common usage and modern scholarship, the term refers to any decorated or illustrated manuscript from Western traditions. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted. Islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works.