Try Amazon Audible Plus
Illustrations from the Shahnama showing Timurid soldiers
Isfandiyar Slays the Dragon, 1435-1440
The figures wear contemporary dress or dress of no latter than the date of the illustration.
Object type: painting, manuscript
Description: Isfandiyar slays the dragon; painting, detached page from a manuscript of Firdawsi's Shahnama. Image of the moment immediately after Isfandiyar kills the dragon by placing a box with swords protruding from all sides on a chariot (lower right corner). One of the three men pictured lies wounded. Four columns of text across both top and bottom of sheet. Ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper.
School/style: Persian School/Style
Culture/period: Timurid dynasty
Production Date: 1435-1440
Production place: Made in: Shiraz (South Iran, Fars province)
Materials: paper
Technique: painted
Dimensions:
Height: 19.4 centimetres (image)
Height: 27 centimetres (sheet)
Width: 14.8 centimetres (image)
Width: 22.6 centimetres (sheet)
Curator's comments
Isfandiyar, the son of Shah Gushtasp, underwent seven tests or stages, much like the hero Rustam. In the third of his adventures, Isfandiyar defeated a fire-breathing dragon by placing a box with swords protruding from all sides on a chariot and climbing inside it.
The sinuous form of the dragon with flames leaping from its back may derive from late 14th-century Shiraz painting produced for the Muzaffarid Dynasty. The horizontal moustaches and beestung lips of the soldiers at the right and left are typical of figures in this manuscript.
Source: British Museum 1948,1009,0.52
Referenced as figure 196 in: M. GORELIK, "Oriental Armour of the Near and Middle East from the Eighth to the Fifteenth Centuries as Shown in Works of Art", in: Islamic Arms and Armour, ed. ROBERT ELGOOD, London 1979
196. Shah-Nameh, Shiraz, c.1420. (British Museum, no. 1948-10-9-052)
