Firdawsi's "Shahnama": The Coffins of Rustam and Zavara
Persian
Ilkhanid period
About 1330–40
Object Place: Tabriz, Iran
DIMENSIONS: With borders: 59.1 x 39.9cm (23 1/4 x 15 11/16 in.) Main support: 41.3 x 29.5 cm (16 1/4 x 11 5/8 in.)
ACCESSION NUMBER: 22.393
MEDIUM OR TECHNIQUE: Ink, color, and gold on paper
Provenance: 1922, sold by Georges Joseph DeMotte (dealer; b. 1877- d. 1923), Paris and New York, to the MFA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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44     Fig. 124
Rustam's and Zavara's Biers
Image: 16 x 29 cm (6¼ x 11⅜ in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Helen and Alice Colburn Fund and Seth K. Sweetser Fund (22.393)

Faramurz, Rustam’s son, was sent to retrieve the bodies of his father and uncle from Kabul. The painting shows the funeral procession with mourners bearing standards and incense, and the biers that passed from hand to hand on their way back to Zabulistan, Rustam’s kingdom.¹ The body of Rakhsh, mounted on the back of an elephant, follows its master in death.

1.Grabar and Blair 1980, pp. 104-5, no. 24.
Source: p.255, The Legacy of Genghis Khan Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia 1256-1353

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Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
Title of Work: Shahnama (Great Mongol)
Manuscript: 22.392-31.436
Accession Number: 22.393
Chapter 15 - Gushtasp (120 years)
Scene: Faramarz mourns Rustam and Zavara
English Title: Picture of Rustam and Zavara's Biers
Dimensions (h x w): 160 x 290 mm
Format: Stepped within borders
Reconstructed Folio: 155v
Gregorian Date: 1335 (circa)
School: Tabriz
Source: Shahnama Project