Beautifully scripted in a very clean and elegant nasta'liq, this is a leaf from a damaged copy of a reproduction of Nezami Ganjavi’s epic poetic work the Khamsa (خمسه, 'Quintet or Quinary') or Panj Ganj (پنج گنج, 'Five Treasures'): Makhzan-ol-Asrâr (مخزن‌الاسرار, 'The Treasury or Storehouse of Mysteries'), 1163 (some date it 1176). Mostly script, the leaf is divided into 4 sections by gold columns, with one elaborate arabesque gold chapter heading to wards the lower portion of the central columns. There is some minor staining in the script, but this is minimal and there are some worm-holes to the lower section (see image 2e). This is a fine example and would grace any collection. Khamsa (Quintet) is Nizami's most famous masterpiece, and, as suggested by the name, it contains a collection of five poems and c. 30,000 couplets. The five poems in the order in which they were composed are as follows: Makhzan al-Asrar (The Treasure House of Mysteries); Khosrow and Shirin; Layla and Majnun; Haft Peykar (Seven Beauties); and Eskandarnameh (also given as Iskandarnamah, The Book of Alexander). The intriguing storyline and the beautiful language of each poem (in particular Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, and Haft Peykar) have provided Persian miniature painting with rich context and have turned Khamsa into one most frequently illustrated works of Persian literature along with Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. Please note that shipping costs are not solely the cost of the postal delivery service itself. Included within the shipping price is the work undertaken to prepare the article, for photography, for uploading to Catawiki, for preparation and packaging the article securely and for transporting the article to the postal delivery agent for processing. Also, please consider when bidding on this lot that this artwork is shipped from the UK. Import duties will now have to be paid by the recipient to the Postal Service when the parcel arrives in your country. This will likely vary between 5% and 20% of the sale price depending on your country's Import Rate, so please check this if you are concerned. This is a Tax collected on behalf of your Government and is not an additional fee charged by us.