The Yarmouk Manuscript is one of the most important art historical documents created during the “Ottoman Golden Age” (1512-1595) to memorialize the reign of Suleiman I (1494-1566). Although only twelve folios exist from the original manuscript, it represents the only time miniature paintings created by the Persian master, Kamaleddin Behzad (1450-1535) and his workshop, were used to illustrate an elegiac poem by Baqi (1526-1600), perhaps the greatest Ottoman poet. This manuscript containing Baqi’s now famous Elegy for Sultan Suleiman was presented by Baqi as a gift to Suleiman’s son and ruler of the East, Selim II, and remains the pinnacle of artistic creativity and dynamism of this period. The manuscript is also unusual in that Behzad’s paintings were created during the early years of Suleiman’s conquest of Europe, but Baqi’s elegy was only scribed onto the paintings some 30 years later after Suleiman’s death.

Originally discovered in the 1880s in a cave site by British and Ottoman archaeologists who were investigating dig sites around the Battle of Yarmouk, the manuscript originally contained 40 folios chronicling Suleiman’s conquest of Europe. Kept in Istanbul through the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, the manuscript was sold May 16, 1916 to a Russian diplomat (thought to be Sergei Sazonov) to help fund the Ottoman war effort during the final days of World War I. It did not surface again until the late 1930s, when it appeared in an advertisement for,  “Persian Mysteries on Paper” on December 26, 1939 in French daily newspaper, Le Matin.

Of the original 40 folios, 12 were purchased in a private sale by Smith’s father, on June 7, 1965, for £25,000. The remaining 28 folios have not been seen since, and are presumed lost, or in the hands of a private collection. This became the basis of the Smith Collection.