KHUSRAW RESCUES SHIRIN BY KILLING A LION WITH HIS BARE HANDS
KHUSRAW RESCUES SHIRIN BY KILLING A LION WITH HIS BARE HANDS

SAFAVID SHIRAZ, CIRCA 1510

细节
KHUSRAW RESCUES SHIRIN BY KILLING A LION WITH HIS BARE HANDS
SAFAVID SHIRAZ, CIRCA 1510
From the Khamsa of Nizami, gouache heightened with gold on paper, Khusraw in a light white tunic defends Shirin who sits behind him in a colourful tent, further guards and attendants stand around them in lush green landscape, with elegant nasta'liq above and below, reverse with 19ll. of nasta'liq divided into four columns with a heading in blue ink on ground of scrolling gilt and polychrome vine, both sides set within gold and blue rules, mounted
Painting 5¼ x 4¾in. (13.4 x 12cm.) at largest; folio 11¼ x 6 5/8in. (28.6 x 16.5cm.)
拍场告示
Please note that this miniature is in fact Safavid and not Timurid.

荣誉呈献

Andrew Butler-Wheelhouse
Andrew Butler-Wheelhouse

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拍品专文

The thick textured vegetation that fills nearly all of the ground of our miniature contrasts beautifully with the almost plain gold horizon which is punctuated with a lone flowering tree. This style of vegetation is mirrored in an illustrated Khamsa of Nizami in the National Library of Russia (Saltykov-Shchedrin) in St. Petersburg which was produced in Shiraz in AH 913/1507-08 AD. The turban style in the St. Petersburg Khamsa and the red outlined oval faces are almost identical to our present painting, (inv. 340, Miniatures Illuminations of Nisami's 'Hamsa', exhibition catalogue, Tashkent, 1985, no.X, illustrations 87-101).

The composition of the scene clearly relates to a painting attributed to Shaykhzada in the Chester Beatty from a copy of the Khamsa dated to AH 931/1525-26 AD, (B.W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting, London, 1967, no. 33, p. 53). Both paintings depict Khusraw and Shirin in almost identical poses. For a Khamsa of Nizami which sold in these Rooms, with illustrations which are very similar to our present painting see 13 October 1998, lot 67.