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Collections

Modern attribution to Muzaffar-Ali
Nushirvan Receives an Embassy from the Khaqan, Page from a Manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdawsicirca 1530-35

Not on view
Persian manuscript page, Nastaliq script panels surrounding a miniature painting of a robed court figure seated on a blue platform receiving attendants within a tiled architectural setting
Illustrated Persian manuscript page with opaque watercolor and gold. A turbaned figure in orange robes is seated on a blue throne within an arched iwan, surrounded by courtiers in colorful garments. Ornate tilework, a garden visible behind, and columns of Persian script in four panels frame the miniature.
Persian manuscript painting with opaque watercolor and gold; a robed figure wearing a plumed white turban sits cross-legged on a raised platform within a tiled arch, surrounded by standing courtiers in colorful robes; geometric tilework in blue, green, and orange frames the scene; Persian script in cartouches at upper left and right; small figures observe from a balcony above left and a window at upper right.
Artist or Maker
Modern attribution to Muzaffar-Ali
Iran, flourished circa 1530-50
Title
Nushirvan Receives an Embassy from the Khaqan, Page from a Manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdawsi
Place Made
Iran, Tabriz
Date Made
circa 1530-35
Period
Safavid (1501-1732)
Medium
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions
18 5/8 x 12 11/16 in. (47.3075 x 32.2263 cm) Frame: 23 × 19 × 1 1/2 in. (58.42 × 48.26 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the 1989 Collectors Committee
Accession Number
M.89.55
Classification
Manuscripts
Collecting Area
Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes

This page comes from a manuscript whose size, scale, and quality make it one of the most luxurious Islamic books ever created—a now-dispersed copy of the Shahnama made for Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76) in his capital, Tabriz, in northwestern Iran. The manuscript originally included innumerable illuminations; more than one thousand pages of text, all with gold-flecked borders; and 258 illustrations, which use formalized conventions to depict a type of idealized world first perfected in Persian painting more than a century earlier. Here the rich colors of the costumes and the architectural decoration, the sedate poses of the figures, and the carefully contrived landscape and gold sky create a most suitable, if unreal, setting for a royal audience.

Selected Bibliography
  • Komaroff, Linda. Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011.