Tur Beheads Iraj

The great Persian national epic, the "Shahnama," or Book of Kings, is a classic of Islamic literature still widely read by Persian speakers today. Composed by the Iranian poet Firdowsi in the early eleventh century, this 60,000-verse epic recounts the tales and exploits of Iran’s pre-Islamic heroes and kings from earliest times to the seventh-century conquest.

"Tur Beheads Iraj" is an illustration from the most sumptuous manuscript of the "Shahnama" ever produced. Shah Tahmasp, the great patron of arts and literature of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736), commissioned this ambitious work containing 258 miniature paintings. The Cincinnati folio has been attributed on stylistic grounds—its expressiveness and vivid use of color—to Sultan-Muhammad, a senior court artist in Shah Tahmasp’s studio, long recognized as one of the two greatest Persian painters.

The subject, the murder of Prince Iraj by his brother Tur, is one of the most dramatic illustrations in the manuscript. In Sultan-Muhammad’s rendering, the drama of the event is heightened by the contrast between the stark white forms of the tent in which the beheading takes place, and the verdant, gentle landscape surrounding it.