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Illustration from
'Book of Fixed Stars' (Kitāb suwar al-kawākib al-ṯābita) by ‛Abd al-Rahman ibn ‛Umar al-Ṣūfī, 1266-7AD Syria? (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Arabe 2489)
Cepheus
folio 27v



Source: BnF Ar 2489 folio 27v


Referenced as PLATE 27C in Moya Catherine Carey, Painting the Stars in a Century of Change: A Thirteenth-Century Copy of Al-Ṣūfī’s Treatise on the Fixed Stars (British Library Or. 5323) (Thesis University of London, 2001).

p.121:
Although it is iconography, not regional or "dynastic" style, which is under discussion in this section, it will be seen that changes in constellation iconography can occur under influence from contemporary style, even when a particular element is a specific iconographical feature of a figure. For example, Cepheus is usually depicted with a beard and a tall mitre. In the 1266AD Paris al-Sufi, both are discarded in favour of a cleanshaven youth, wearing a tall sharbūsh [PLATE 27C]. The facial type occurs throughout the manuscript, and the sharbūsh is evidently a reflection of contemporary style. The same features occur in other illustrated manuscripts of the thirteenth century (see below under Cepheus).

p.126
Cepheus (the Ethiopian king, father of Andromeda)

A fur lining is added to the British Library al-Ṣūfī, 1125AD Qatar and 1266-67AD Paris manuscripts [PLATES 27B, 27C]. (In the latter version, the mitre is a Turkish sharbüsh, a two-part fur cap with a high frontal peak).



Back to other al-Sufi Manuscripts. 'Book of Fixed Stars' (Kitāb suwar al-kawākib al-ṯābita) by ‛Abd al-Rahman ibn ‛Umar al-Ṣūfī