Now we just get pizza delivery adverts, but in the 1870s it was manuscripts dated 1446! Or so says the recent BL blog about an overlooked seventeenth century Shahnameh. Apparently Sir George Birdwood, a special assistant working in the revenue and statistical department of the India Office, received a parcel addressed to him in the Bombay Fort Post Office, with no postage paid. Luckily, he accepted it, paid the postage (presumably!) … and found he’d been sent a Shahnameh dated 1446.
Stylistically, the date is “impossibly early” for the date in the colophon: 850 / 1446. But RetroReveal suggests that there is a zero before the five, and that the second stroke of the number eight is written in different ink. So maybe the original date was 1050 / 1640 – which looks a lot more possible considering the style of the paintings.
Where did this magic parcel come from? The BL think that the anonymous donor may have been a Parsi whose signature ‘Framjee Shapoorjee Dhunjeibhoy’ is dated 1874 (f.443v) and [18]87 (f.38r). Unfortunately nothing more is known about him.