The Stars of Samarkand

Ulugh Beg’s Book of the Fixed Stars by Al-Sufi

Ulugh Beg’s Book of the Fixed Stars

The skies and their empirical observation have fascinated people worldwide – and this manuscript gives us a glimpse of fabled Samarkand, mythical center of the Silk Road in the 15th century and synonymous with oriental splendour under the Timurids. Ulugh Beg, a scientist on a ruler’s throne, had the famous 10th-century text of Al-Sufi calligraphed and painted as a magnificent manuscript for his library, depicting star constellations in 72 unique miniatures.

Masterpieces of Book Illumination

Fine Art Facsimile Leaves from Marvellous Islamic manuscripts

For more than 1000 years, fantastic manuscripts have been created throughout the islamic world. For the first time ever, some of them are being partly reproduced as Fine Art Facsimile Leaves. They form a worldwide unique collection presenting the achievements of calligraphers and miniaturists from more than 10 centuries and different cultures from the Islamic world.

Each leaf is reproduced faithfully to look exactly as the precious original: every aspect, colours, and the shining gold –wherever existent – are being reproduced down to the smallest detail. Even the cutting is irregular, completely like the original.

Every single leaf is presented on a luxury paper passepartout. Describing texts in Arabic and English accompany each leaf, which is protected by a Luxury Presentation Map printed with foil gold.

A total of 20 different leaves are available in this series. Furthermore a selection of 12 leaves will be available in an ornamental case as a special luxury edition.

The Luxury Box “Masterpieces of Islamic Book Illumination”

12 Fine Art Facsimile Leaves in a Luxury Leather Box

The Luxury Box “Masterpieces of Islamic Book Illumination” collects 12 single leaves in a limited high-end edition: a sumptuous box, worked out in real leather with rich gold embossing, is holding the leaves.

Fine Art Facsimile Editions:
how can they be of use?

A Facsimile Edition can be used in many different ways:

in exhibitions and presentations worldwide to transport the rich Islamic culture without the danger of compromising the irreplaceable original
as an exclusive gift representing its culture and its heritage in a very personal and unique way –in fact the most personal gift possible
and as an exclusive instrument to improve and enlarge cultural exchange between cultures, to get a better understanding of different cultures.

Driven by our philosophy – by providing our customers with these ambassadors – books in the highest quality, produced by using the most modern technologies as well as centuries old methods of traditional handwork we try to contribute to cultural exchange for a better understanding between peoples.

Digitalization

In most cases by a special high-resolution camera. The precious original
manuscript is held in place by a specially designed framework allowing to support
single pages for digitalization without endangering it.

Pre-printing process

Days or weeks of post-production of the files follow. Each page has to be reviewed, corrected and prepared for the printing process. Some original colours are corrected by hand as they are not able to be reproduced automatically. A special task is the preparation of metallic colours: each gold or silver part has to be edited by hand.

Hard proofs for comparison

To ensure the best result, a first hard proof is produced and then compared to the original. If even minor variances in colour are discovered, they are corrected in the files. This procedure is repeated until the result meets our quality demands.

Printing & attaching gold and silver

Depending on the characteristics of the original, respective techniques and materials are used – from gold and silver foils or metallic dust to 23K real gold. Eventually it is necessary to recreate structure or patina as well.

Binding and Refinement

Normally we choose to reproduce the binding of the original, if it has a relevance; otherwise we take a similar binding of that time and culture, fitting to the characteristics of the original. Of course we are very flexible with the binding, also being able to make completely different types and using a wide variety of materials.

Scholarly Commentary

Our editions are accompanied by a commentary volume, giving the owner of
the Facsimile Edition a scientific overview on the original: its origins and why it was
created, its history and a description of its contents, for example miniature descriptions if there are any.