Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131). The book was translated and published in various languages. This blog presents the publication with art from Ronald Balfour (1896–1941), published in 1920.

Some mention the style from Balfour has many resemblences with that from Aubrey Beardsley. Balfour himselve claimed that ‘he had never seen the work of Aubrey Beardsley when he created these Rubáiyát illustrations’ which is a bit difficult to believe considering the fact that Balfour was an untrained artist and the work from Beardsley, and also that from  Kay Nielsen (1886 – 1957) which is in a simular art deco style, was very complicated.