An illustrated and illuminated leaf from a manuscript of Firdausi's Shahnameh: Rustam fighting Isfandiyar, copied by Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Husaini (al-Mausili), Persia, Shiraz, 741 AH/1341 AD

The illustration depicts the fight between Rustam and Isfandiyar, an episode from the Persian epic of Firdausi, the Shahnameh. Isfandiyar, the son of the Persian king Gushtasp, was promised the crown by his father if he could capture the legendary hero Rustam. Rustam refused Isfandiyar’s demands and the two warriors met in single combat. Set against a red, ochre and partially unpainted background, Rustam is depicted in his coat of tiger’s skin on the left and Isfandiyar on the right, their shields clashing as they go into battle. 

This leaf is from an important group of the earliest surviving illustrated manuscripts of the Shahnameh which date from the early fourteenth century. The Shahnameh manuscript to which our leaf belongs is now dispersed. The illustrated side of our leaf would be f.191a recto, and the other side with only text f.191b verso, in the original manuscript. A double page (f.5b, 6a) which would have appeared at the beginning of Firdausi’s text in this manuscript, illuminated with large rosettes and bearing a long dedication, is in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. (S1986.110 verso, S1986.111 recto; illus. in Simpson 2000, p.218, pl.1&2). The dedication states that the manuscript was commissioned by the library of Qiwam al-Dawla wa’l-Din Hasan, the vizier of Fars, at the end of the month of Ramadan in 741 AH/mid-March 1341 AD. Qiwam al-Dawla served as minister to the Injuid governor of Fars. The Injuids were vassals of the Mongol Ilkhanid rulers of Iran in the fourteenth century. The colophon folio of the Shahnameh with partially rubbed text, now in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (f.321 or 322 verso; AKM37v), mentions the name of the scribe, Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Husaini, known as al-Mausili.

Produced in Shiraz, the capital of Fars under the Injus, this Shahnameh is originally thought to have contained approximately 325 folios, and between 108 and 140 paintings. The illustrations are distinguishable by their red and ochre backgrounds and the paint applied in thin washes of colour. The illustrations vary in size and shape depending on the episode being depicted; most of them are rectangular, as in the present lot, while others are of stepped form. The manuscript finds comparison with two other well-known, contemporaneous Shahnameh manuscripts produced under the Injuid dynasty, one in the library of the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul (H.1479) dated to 731 AH/1330 AD, the other in the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg (Dorn 329) dated to 733 AH/1333 AD.

By 1919, the manuscript was in the possession of the dealer Dikran Kelekian, who dispersed its leaves in Europe and North America between public and private collections. Several folios were included in significant exhibitions of Persian painting such as the 'International Exhibition of Persian Art' at the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London in 1931, and the Paris Exhibition of Iranian Art in 1938.

In 2000, Marianna Shreve Simpson located a significant number of folios, mostly in museum collections, and reconstructed their original order in the Shahnameh. A listing of folios, and their present location, is published in an appendix at the end of her article 'A Reconstruction and Preliminary Account of the 1341 Shahnama, with Some Further Thoughts on Early Shahnama Illustration' in Hillenbrand (ed.) 2000, pp.236-245. The majority of the surviving folios are in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (CBL Per 110; eighty-five folios). The present folio is listed on p.242. Other collections with leaves from this manuscript include the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C. (12 folios); the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (11 folios); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (7 folios), Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (5 folios); The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London (5 folios); The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (4 folios); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (3 folios); The Keir Collection (3 folios), The British Museum (2 folios), among others. For further discussion on this manuscript, see ibid., pp.217-35.

Leaves from this manuscript sold at auction include Christie’s London, 15 October 1996, lots 122-126; Sotheby’s London, 6 December 1967, lots 10-12, and 15 October 1997, lot 38. For another folio from this group of early Shahnameh manuscripts, known as the Second Small Shahnameh and dated to circa 1300, see the previous lot in this sale.