The Imprisoned Wife, Folio from a Khamsa of Amir Khusraw of Delhi

Enlarge My gallery Comment Tag Share Download Image*
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/collections.lacma.org-images/remote_images/ma-90328-O3.jpg?J5p.4CFL03fcj6NZSnFwr_XXRwQf6szD
View comments
No comments have been posted yet.
Add a comment
Please log in to add comments.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
Download powerpoint quality jpeg Download publication quality tiff
Current tags
This item has not been tagged yet.
Please log in to add tags.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

The Imprisoned Wife, Folio from a Khamsa of Amir Khusraw of Delhi

Northern India, circa 1400-1450
Drawings; watercolors
Ink and opaque watercolor on paper
Image: 4 1/2 x 8 7/8 in. (11.43 x 22.54 cm); Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/8 in. (34.29 x 26.35 cm)
From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase (M.78.9.3)
South and Southeast Asian Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

The Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (1253–1325) consists of five poems written in rhyming couplets (masnavi) in 1301-1302....
The Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (1253–1325) consists of five poems written in rhyming couplets (masnavi) in 1301-1302. It emulates the Khamsa of Nizami Ganjavi of Iran (circa 1141–1209). The five poems are Matla ul-Anwar (Dawn of Lights), ethical and Sufi topics; the romance of Khusraw-Shirin; the romance of Layla-Majnun; Aina-e-Sikandari, the history of Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE); and Hasht-Bihisht (Eight Paradises), the story of the Sasanian king Bahram V (or Bahram Gur, r. 420-438). This folio is from a widely dispersed Khamsa of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (Dihlavi) that was stylistically influenced by 14th-century paintings of Mamluk Egypt or of the Inju school of Iran. Additional folios are in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, Washington; Cleveland Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; San Diego Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Worcester Art Museum; and various private collections. The Hasht-Bihisht consists of seven stories, each told to Bahram V on a particular day of the week by a different princess in a color-coded pavilion. This painting depicts an episode recounted on Sunday in the Saffron Pavilion. The wife of the goldsmith Hasan is shown stranded at the top of a prison tower after helping her husband escape from it. She is being taunted from below by onlookers.
More...

Bibliography

  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya, ed.  Aspects of Indian Art: Papers Presented in a Symposium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1972.
  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya, ed.  Aspects of Indian Art: Papers Presented in a Symposium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1972.

  • Pal, Pratapaditya, Thomas W. Lentz, Sheila R. Canby, Edwin Binney, 3rd, Walter B. Denny, and Stephen Markel. "Arts from Islamic Cultures: Los Angeles County Museum of Art." Arts of Asia 17, no. 6 (November/December 1987): 73-130.

  • Pal, Pratapaditya. Indian Painting, vol.1. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.
  • Brac de la Perrière, Eloïse.  "Les manuscrits à peintures dans l'Inde des sultanats: l'exemple de la Khamse dispersée d'Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, c. 1450."  Arts Asiatiques 56 (2001):  38.
More...