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Bahram Gur Fights the Horned Wolf (painting, verso; text, recto), illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Great Il-Khanid Shahnama (Book of Kings)

Unidentified Artistc. 1330 - 1340

Harvard Art Museums

Harvard Art Museums
Cambridge, United States

This folio is from a celebrated copy of the text known as the Great Ilkhanid Shahnama, one of the most complex masterpieces of Persian art. Because of its lavish production, it is assumed to have been commissioned by a high-ranking member of the Ilkhanid court and produced at the court scriptorium. The fifty-seven surviving illustrations reflect the intense interest in historical chronicles and the experimental approach to painting of the Ilkhanid period (1256–1335). The eclectic paintings reveal the cosmopolitanism of the Ilkhanid court in Tabriz, which teemed with merchants, missionaries, and diplomats from as far away as Europe and China. Here the Iranian king Bahram Gur wears a robe made of European fabric to slay a fearsome horned wolf in a setting marked by the conventions of Chinese landscape painting.

Details

  • Title: Bahram Gur Fights the Horned Wolf (painting, verso; text, recto), illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Great Il-Khanid Shahnama (Book of Kings)
  • Creator: Unidentified Artist
  • Creator Lifespan: 1/1
  • Date: c. 1330 - 1340
  • Physical Dimensions: w30.0 x h41.5 cm (folio)
  • Period: Ilkhanid period
  • Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
  • Creation Place: Tabriz/Iran/Middle East
  • Type: Manuscripts
  • External Link: Harvard Art Museums
  • Medium: Opaque watercolor, gold and silver on paper

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