THE FUNERAL OF SIYAWUSH

OTTOMAN TURKEY, 17TH CENTURY

Details

THE FUNERAL OF SIYAWUSH
OTTOMAN TURKEY, 17TH CENTURY
An illustration to an Ottoman prose translation of the Shahnama of Firdawsi, gouache heightened with gold on paper, mourners standing in a landscape look on as Kay Khusraw leans over the coffin of Siyawush, Rustam stands next to them clutching a handkerchief, framed above and below by 14ll. of neat black naskh, the verso with 25ll. of similar naskh, between minor gold, black and blue rules, minor repairs, mounted
Painting 3 5/8 x 5in. (9.4 x 12.9cm.); folio 10 x 5½in. (25.4 x 13.9cm.)

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Andrew Butler-Wheelhouse

abutler-wheelhouse@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2372

Lot Essay

The Shahnama was translated into Turkish prose as early as the reign of Sultan Murad II (Zeren Tanindi, 'The Illustration of the Shahnama and the Art of the Book in Ottoman Turkey', in Charles Melville & Gabrielle van den Berg (eds.), Shahnama Studies II: The Reception of Firdausi's Shahnama, Leiden, 2012, p.141). The headgear of the figures in our illustration resemble those in the Ottoman Eckstein Shahnama which is dated to the equivalent of the 12th of January 1584, (Will Kwiatkowski, The Eckstein Shahnama: An Ottoman Book of Kings, London, 2005). The proportions of the figures in this illustration suggest that it comes from a manuscript produced prior to the Eckstein copy.

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