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13 - Dia Al AZZAWI (Iraq, 1939) Alf Layla wa Layla. The Thousand …
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Estimate €25,000 - €30,000
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Description
Dia Al AZZAWI (Iraq, 1939) Alf Layla wa Layla. The Thousand & one Nights. Special edition. Portfolio of 25 prints by Azzawi. London, 1986. Large broadsheet in black buckram slipcase with gilt and silver metallic bas-relief on cover. The Arabic text of the "Thousand and One Nights" which gave rise to these illustrations is that of the first scholarly edition of this text edited by Professor Mushin Mahdi and published in 1984, translated into English by Husain Haddawi. This special edition is limited to just 25 copies, signed and numbered in Roman numerals (n°XXV), with 5 artist's proofs. This edition includes 9 lithographs in colour, 15 etchings (6 hand-coloured and 3 aquatints) and 3 etchings. The prints and text are printed on white Arches wove paper. Each print is signed and numbered in pencil and presented in a titled and captioned folder, numbered 1 to 20 (including 7 bis). H. 56 cm, W. 73 cm, D. 6.5 cm (slipcase) Colours: 4 to 7 per image. Printer: The Print Centre U.K., Serif Graphics; bindery: G. Ryder and Co. Comparable work : Institut du monde arabe, Paris, inv. n°AC 87-13. Bibliography : Ayoub, Abderrahman. 1994; "Les Mille et une Nuits d'après l'œuvre de Dhia Azzawi." In Les Mille et une Nuits dans les imaginaires croisés. Lucette Heller-Goldenberg ed. Cologne: Romanisches Seminar der Universität Köln, pp. 159-170; Ayoub Abderahman, Lecture croisée: les Mille et Une Nuits de Dhia Azzawi in Africa, Cahiers des arts et Traditions populaires N° 11. Dia AZZAWI. Alain JOUFFROY (et al.), Institut du monde arabe, Paris, 2001, p. 68. "Every text is simultaneously of its time and of all times. I found a support for my feelings in Arab poetry, which is linguistically so dense and visually so rich. Dia Al-Azzawi. Azzawi doesn't just illustrate the Nights: he reinterprets them plastically, creating a synthesis between formal modernity and Arab-Islamic visual heritage. The theme of the Thousand and One Nights has permeated Azzawi's work from the outset: as early as 1967, he devoted a series of paintings to this corpus, initiating an uninterrupted dialogue with the great Arab literature. This portfolio, produced in London in 1986, is one of the most accomplished expressions of this dialogue - and the recent exhibition Excursion Across Time (Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, 2026), which closed with an afternoon dedicated to the Nights, is a reminder of the extent to which this theme remains at the heart of his work, forty years later, in the same city.
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About the sale Arab, African & Indian Modernities
Auction location
Auction time 06/18/2026 at 2:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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