There are few cenotaphs (turba) of this type in public collections, and in only one other of the published examples has the original painting survived (Fehérvári and Safadi, no. 150). The well-known cenotaph in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of design, Providence (Pope, pl.1472) is of the same form as this and according to its inscription was made in 1473 for a ruler of the Baduspanid dynasty of Mazanderan. A number of other cenotaphs in Mazanderan have been recorded, but without illustrations, by Rabino; and it is possible that ours, too, comes from that province.

There was an inscription running continuously on the upper edge of the panels and the two exposed sides of the supports. The upper frieze of our two supports reads (a) Jala al-haqq w'al-d[in] and (b) al-shahid al-malik while the lower reads (a) salwatAllah 'alaihi was 'alaihum ajma'in (the blessing of God on him and on them all), and (b) al-tahir wa'l-mutahhir (the pure and the simple). The word shahid indicates that the cenotaph memorialises a martyr.

Pope, A. U.: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938
Fehérvári, G and Safadi,Y. H.: 1400 Years of Islamic Art, Khalili Gallery, London, 1981
Sotheby's: Islamic Works of Art, Carpets and Textiles, London, 12th October 1982, lot 60, now in the Kuwait National Museum