This drawing depicts a well-known story about Bahram Gur, a prince of Iran’s pre-Islamic Sasanian dynasty, best known from Firdawsi’s Shahnama (Book of Kings), the Iranian national epic completed in 1010, but also recounted in the later Haft Paykir (Seven Portraits) by Nizami. Challenged by his favorite concubine to demonstrate his skill as an archer, Bahram Gur performs a series of feats, including pinning the hoof of a gazelle to its own ear. Earlier manuscript illustrations of the same subject often portray Azada (Fitna in Nizami’s poem) as witnessing the prince’s display. In the present version, however, Azada is entirely absent, while the camel, probably her mount, is left unfinished suggesting that this grisaille (gray ink wash) version was made as a study, possibly for (or after) a larger mural or oil painting.

• Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.

• Pal, Pratapaditya, ed.  Islamic Art:  The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection.  Los Angeles:  Museum Associates, 1973.

• 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.