Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208)

[6] The text was written by ʻAbd al-Rahīm ʻAnbarīn-qalām, not to be confused with Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana, Akbar's minister and translator from Persian,[7] between 12 Oct 1593 and 14 December 1595, as inscriptions record.

[9] One miniature, of Khusraw hunting, is the latest known work of Abd al-Samad, former head of the imperial workshop and one of the artists Humayun had brought from Persia some forty-five years earlier, at the start of the Mughal tradition.

This had been a common method in the imperial workshop, but was giving way to having miniatures all painted by a single artist, as the Mughal style became increasingly concerned with fine detail and realistic depiction.

The miniatures have somewhat variable rectangular frames of plain lines and bands of colour, outside which there are generous borders filled with very high quality gold grisaille decoration of plants, birds and animals, with some rocks and other landscape elements.

Outside this are further plain frames, with a final zone of simple pen decoration which is probably recent as the form is different between the pages in London and those in Baltimore.

[18] Apart from the figurative miniatures, there are a number of pages with decorative panels of abstract motifs, plants and animals, especially at the beginning and end of sections of the work.

The original painted and lacquered book covers each (front and back) have one side with a gold and brown scene of animals attacking other animals in a landscape and on the other side a scene with muted colour, one of a hunt and the other of an enthroned ruler, no doubt Akbar, being presented with the catch of game.

[20] The known history resumes in 1909, when the London portion was bought by the collector C. W. Dyson Perrins (of the Worcestershire sauce family), who bequeathed it to the British Museum at his death in 1958.