Manuscript in a modern binding of red-brown leather with blind and gold tooling; doublures of marbled paper. The edges of the pages are gilded. The spine has an inscription, the Shahnama of Firdausi, in gold.
There are three library seals (f.1r), and the bookplate of James Caulfield. The ms. was purchased from Col. H.B. Hanna, no. 13 in the catalogue of the sale, gift of Charles Lang Freer. Previously listed as SI. 1591 and F07.279.
The pages are badly worm eaten at both ends of the text. A glossary has been inserted at the front (2 fols.). The ms. opens with the start of the Baysunghuri Preface, on an illuminated double-page opening (ff. 1v-2r), followed by a double frontispiece of Solomon and Bilqis (ff. 2v-3r), and the continuation of the prose preface on f. 3v-9r. The text of the Shahnama starts on f. 9v, incipit normative, under a richly ornamented unvan and on an illuminated page.
The text is richly decorated, with the columns alternating pale blue and gold to left and right, and orange and gold in the centre. The margins are elaborately ruled in grey/blue, space, 2 thin black, thick gold, thick grey/blue, crimson, pale blue, small space, tomato red, 2 thin black with gold lines. The rubric boxes are generally only of one line, outlined in black, with a gold ground; but also some floral panels (e.g. f. 13r). Titles are written in white nasta'liq.
The number of lines per page varies (22 on the sample page, f. 11r), but later more often 25 lines.
On the whole, the text conforms closely to the printed editions, at least in the pasages round the paintings, although in two places (ff. 397r, 434r) the verses cannot be identified in the editions of Dabir-Siyaqi or Mohl.
Preliminary investigation by Ch.M., lines recorded by L.W., July 2006.