This April 26th, Roseberys’ Antiquities & Islamic Arts sale celebrates a wide range of artistic traditions and offers an array of collecting opportunities that includes unusual and museum quality manuscripts, paintings, works of art and textiles.

The sale will kick off with a broad range of Antiquities, featuring a wonderful Egyptian limestone relief fragment with an extremely unusual depiction of a man and his wet-nurse, identified in the hieroglyphics to one side (Lot 20). The New Kingdom piece comprises an inscription identifying the woman’s name as “lyt-her-dit” and is offered for £5000-7000. Other wonderful works include an Attic red-figure lekanis,attributed to the Group of the Rodin Lekanis, circa 380-360 B.C., and a collection of rare intact Amlash pottery acquired in the 1960s.

Lot 20: An Egyptian fragmentary limestone pair statue of a man and a women 

The ever-popular manuscripts section features a collection of manuscripts, calligraphies and calligraphic albums compiled by a Qajar royal, 'Abd al-Wahhab Khan, Nizam ul-Mulk (1848-1916) and added to by his descendants. The works include a number of signed and dated calligraphies from the 18th and 19th centuries. There are several fine manuscripts including a beautiful Qajar miniature Qur’an signed by Salih Muhammad Hassan al-Isfahani and dated 1241AH/1825AD (lot 92). This lavishly decorated hand-written manuscript carries and estimate of £1000-1500.

Lot 92: A Qajar miniature Qur'an
signed Salih Muhammad Hassan al-Isfahani 

We are also please to present manuscripts formerly in the collection of Prof. W.M. Ballantyne (1922-2021), a very important figure of Arab law scholarship, including an Ottoman qur’an signed by Ali Uthman al-Hilmi dated 1272AH/1855AD. Further works from An Important Private Collection which Roseberys sold in April and October 2023 also feature, and include a group of delicate gold-decorated 16th century folios from Central Asia (Lot 132) for an estimate of £500-700. 

Lot 132: Property from An Important Private Collection 

Other highlights of note include a wonderful collection of medieval Islamic pottery, including many near intact examples from 11th-13th century Iran. Lot 313, a rather special turquoise and black decorated bowl from Kashan, was formerly with Spinks in the late 1960s, and carries and estimate of £1000-1500. A large lustred tile fragment from the Ilkhanid royal palace of Takht-i-Suleyman is also of note, as well as an array of Iranian, Palestinian and Egyptian textiles.

Lot 313: A turquoise blue glazed and black conical bowl 

Modern and contemporary works close the sale, starting with a painting by Iraqi artist Issan el-Said (1938-1988) who was a close friend of the vendor’s family, both in his native Iraq, and when he moved to London in the 1950s. Another Iraqi artist we are proud to present is Walid Siti, with a work on paper from the Precious Stones Series #1, which is Lot 400 in our sale. Born in Iraqi-Kurdistan, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. The work has an estimate of £500-700. 

Lot 400: Walid Siti, Kurdistan, Iraq b.1954- Precious Stones Series, #1