Sulayman and Bilqis enthroned with courtiers, animals, birds and jinns: illustrated double-page frontispiece from a manuscript of Persian poetry, Safavid, Shiraz school, circa 1540-50

Gouache heightened with gold on paper, finely illuminated borders in colours and gold, reverse of Bilqis miniature with a full page of fine illumination

in overall good condition, minor creases on the side, as viewed.
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This double page miniature is a finely-executed example of the Shiraz school of the mid-sixteenth century.  As was often the case with Safavid manuscripts of poetry, the image chosen for the opening frontispiece was the popular scene of Suleiman and Bilqis (Solomon and the Queen of Sheba).  Despite the fact that it is unrelated to the text of the Shahnama, this scene gave a symbolic blessing to the beginning of the manuscript.  The miniature on the left-hand page depicts Bilqis enthroned, surrounded by angels and attendants.  The right half shows Solomon enthroned, surrounded by angels, animals, men and demons.  The left-hand page and verso of the present folio are similar, if slightly earlier, to an opening leaf sold in these rooms on 5 April 2006, lot 39, whilst the right-hand page can be compared to the other half of the latter manuscript in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University (inv. No. 2002.50.37 –  illustrated in Mary McWilliams, With Quite Different Eyes, Apollo, Nº. 489, 2002, pp.12-16).  A further Shirazi depiction of this scene, dated 1604, is in the Bibliothéque Nationale de France (illustrated in Richard 1997, no.146, pp.186-7 & p.203).