Rustam before Kai Kavus having knocked down Tus
Folio from a Shahnama
Bijapur, circa 1610
Ink, opaque watercolour and gold on gold-sprinkled paper, the verso with twenty-five lines of nasta’liq divided into four columns and a gold-ground caption in red at the top; and a further detached folio, unillustrated, with two captions in red on gold ground and one on its verso, each side with similar nasta’liq; re-margined in the seventeenth or eighteenth century
5 1/3 by 3 in.; 13.5 by 8 cm. painting
8 by 4 ¾ in.; 20.5 by 12.3 cm. folio
This folio is set in a sumptuous royal interior, with an enthroned king in front of whom Rustem appears, wearing a plumed bearskin headdress and fully armed with a sword in his right hand, a bow and quiver of arrows, and a dagger at his belt. In front of him a courtier in a golden robe lies prostrate, an attendant to the left. The scene takes place in a palace chamber with gold spandrels, a medallion carpet and walls of mauve decorated with interlacing gold foliage, interrupted with two green-ground panels each containing a a gilt ewer. Above are four rows of nasta’liq enclosed by cloud bands and with gold rules.
A BIJAPUR SHAHNAMA
Approximately two dozen folios are known from this apparently unique manuscript, which depicts traditional Shahnama themes in a distinctively Bijapur style.
Others from this manuscript are in the San Diego Museum of Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco and Cleveland Museum of Art. In addition, four folios from this manuscript are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Two further folios were sold at Christie’s, New York, 19 March 2015, lot 227.
Provenance
Spink & Son, London, 1970s
D.B. Robertson, London, 1970s-90s
Private collection, London, by descent until 2018