QAJAR IRAN, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Completed in the Qajar period, just before the introduction of the lithograph, these four Shahnama folios represent renewed vigour and energy committed to the tradition of manuscript illustration. The Shahnama illustrations here were not purely to continue the long tradition of pre-Islamic Persian kings and to solidify the Qajar royal family’s place in society but to express “the dynasty’s evolving concepts of ideal Persian kingship” (Hyunjin Cho, Illustrated Manuscripts and Lithographic Books in Dialogue: Firdawsi’s Shahnama in Nineteenth-Century Iran, Boston, 2023). Cho makes particular note of the frequency of vibrant battle scenes in the 18^th and 19^th century. This can be seen with ours and in a closely related example in the British Library, London (acc.no. IO Islamic 3442). Two similar folios were sold in these Rooms, 11 April 2014, lot 187.