PROBABLY SAFAVID TABRIZ OR QAZVIN, IRAN, THIRD QUARTER 16TH CENTURY

The painting has been pasted into a later album page and the large text pasted above and below is from the Anwar-i Suhayli of Va'iz al-Kashifi, whilst the small cartouches running vertically either side are non-continuous extracts from Nizami's Khamsa. A very similar illustration of Shapur presenting a portrait of Khusraw to Shirin, from the Khamsa of Nizami, mounted in a later album page was sold in these Rooms, 4 October 2012, lot 116. Not only is the illustration of that painting closely comparable to ours, the page in which it has been laid down follows the same pattern of larger cartouches of text above and below, smaller vertical cartouches of text, and margins with similar gilt lattice decoration.