The manuscript  which represents a classical work of Arabic literature reached the Kaiser-und Königliche Hofbibliothek  (the precurser of the  present Nationalbibliothek)  in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Maqamat (assemblies) describe the adventures of the roguish and silver-tongued trickster Abu Zaid who, on his travels, turned each situation to his advantage while not always behaving according to the common moral codex. Fifty of these tales, handed down  by oral tradition, were written down the by al-Hariri around 1100. His version of the Maqamat became very popular in the thirteenth  and fourteenth centuries to which testifies the large number of preserved copies (thirteen of them illustrated). According to its colophon, the Vienna Hariri  was created in 1334 at Cairo, then capital of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate. Hence it is one of the latest existing  Hariri manuscripts with illustrations. The manuscript is complete, only   its original cover and sixteen folios are missing.

The 195 folios  are richly ornamented. In addition to the text written in Mamluk naskh, the folios are decorated with whorls stamped onto golden ground, titles framed with arabesques, and seventy illustrations.

The manuscript belongs to a group of early Mamluk manuscripts  which follow  the style of book painting of the schools of  Baghdad  and Mosul. While the influence of  Baghdad was limited to some eclectically used motifs, the  impact of the Mosul group is more distinct.  This is shown by the use of certain motifs such as long-stemmed fantasy plants symbolising landscapes, as well as  other stylistic similarities, in particular the way in which human beings and the drapery of garments are rendered.

The  illustrations of the Vienna  Hariri  transform  these features  so that they appear more  stylised and  decorative.

The paintings in which figures with richly ornamented garments dominate fascinate with their glowing colours and linear decorative compositions. In a Viennese context they appear like an anticipation of  Gustav Klimt’s artistic principles of the early twentieth century. The  high quality of the paintings and their  stylistic consistency make   the Vienna Hariri one of the most splendid examples of early Mamluk book painting.

Based on German text by Doris Schneider

Bibliography:
Duda, Dorothea, Die Illuminierten Handschriften der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Islamische Handschriften II: Die Handschriften in Arabischer Sprache (Textband und Tafelband), Wien, 1992.
Haldane, Duncan, Mamluk Painting, Warminster, 1978.
Holter, Kurt, Die Galen Handschrift und die Makamen des Hariri der Wiener Nationalbibliothek, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Sonderheft 104, Wien, 1937

Grabar, Oleg, The Illustrations of the Maqamat, Chicago und London 1984.