SOLOMON ENTHRONED

SAFAVID SHIRAZ, CIRCA 1580

Details

SOLOMON ENTHRONED
SAFAVID SHIRAZ, CIRCA 1580
Gouache heightened with gold on paper, from the frontispiece of a manuscript, Solomon in a halo of flame kneels upon a golden throne, before him kneels his vizier Asaf, as well as divs, angels and attendants, real and fantastic beasts from simurghs to snakes surround them, a landscape with silver stream in the foreground and purple rocky mountains behind, three sides of the miniature framed with elegant gold and polychrome illumination, the verso with a number of later ownership stamps and inscriptions, some scuffing and creasing, mounted, framed and glazed
Painting 9¼ x 5 7/8in. (23 x 14.6cm.); folio 14 7/8 x 9 3/8in. (37.8 x 23.9cm.)

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Lot Essay

This folio is half of a double-page frontispiece. It depicts King Solomon and would probably have faced a folio with Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba enthroned. Similar depictions of Solomon appear in the frontispieces of many Safavid illustrated manuscripts, merging the image of the just king with that of a prophet who is close God.

A similar miniature is in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art (2002.50.37). Another is in the Topkapi Saray Museum (TSMK H.1475, Lâle Uluç, Turkman governors, Shiraz artisans and Ottoman collectors, Istanbul, 2006, no.229, pp.296-97).

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