- Artist or Maker
- Bishandas
India, active circa 1590-1640 - Artist or Maker
- Inayd Inayat
India, active circa 1590-1615 (?) - Title
- Faridun Strikes Zahhak, Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)
- Date Made
- circa 1610
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 13 5/8 x 9 in. (34.61 x 22.86 cm); Image: 5 7/8 x 4 1/4 in. (14.92 x 10.8 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.78.9.5
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
The Shahnama (Book of Kings) is an epic Persian poem composed by Firdausi (or Ferdowsi; circa 934-1020) in circa 977-1010. It narrates the legendary and historical past of the Persian Empire until the Arab Muslim conquest in the 7th century. Mounted in ornate gilded borders featuring a landscape with scenes of animal combat, similar to those of the 1608 Farhang-i Jahangiri (Jahangir’s Dictionary; see M.73.5.535–.537), this folio has been attributed to a now-dispersed royal album. A related folio suggested by Linda Leach to be from a court copy of this manuscript is in Cleveland Museum of Art (1945.171). According to the marginal inscriptions, the LACMA folio was painted by Bishandas (India, active circa 1590-1640) and Inayd Inayat (India, active circa 1590-1615?). Inayat may have been responsible for the design and overall execution, while Bishandas executed the figures.
This folio depicts an episode from the Shahnama in which the hero Faridun strikes the evil Iranian King Zahhak with an ox-headed mace (gorz) symbolic of righteous might that was also wielded by other heroes in the Shahnama, particularly Bahram Gur and Rustam. (For a typological example, see a 19th-century Iranian ox-headed mace in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; 36.25.1882.) Zahhak had confronted Faridun in the former’s palace after Faridun occupied it during his absence and dallied with his wives. The women of the harem look on in dismay, while Zahhak’s army engages Faridun’s followers at the gate.
- Selected Bibliography
- Heeramaneck, Alice N. Masterpieces of Indian Painting : From the Former Collections of Nasli M. Heeramaneck. New York: A.N. Heeramaneck, 1984.
- 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. Indian Painting, vol.1. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.
- Art of India and Southeast Asia. University of Illinois, Champaign: Krannert Art Museum, 1964.
