TWO LOOSE ILLUSTRATED FOLIOS FROM A DISPERSED SHAHNAMA MANUSCRIPT
Possibly Shiraz, late Safavid Iran, 17th - 18th century

Persian manuscript on paper, comprising an illustrated folio with 15ll. of black ink nasta’liq script arranged in four columns, the front with a miniature painting of Isfandiyar slaying the Simurgh, opaque pigments, pencil, ink, albumen-burnished white and gold highlights, the hero's hidden chest depicted on the hill behind, the Simurgh’s chicks peeping from the nest in the tree to the left, the reverse with 26ll., set within black and gold rules, the text panel 28cm x 16.5cm, the folio 37.2cm x 24.5cm; and a miniature painting of a battle scene strewn with body parts, the battlefield observed by onlookers from a hill, the hero Rustam lifting his enemy overhead, a youth lying slain in a river in the foreground, his disembodied arm cast off to one side, Rustam clad in a maroon Ottoman Cintamani coat and wearing a snow leopard head on top of his helmet, his nemesis Isfandiyar in armour and aigrette turban, laid on later buff paper painted with birds and beasts in a blooming landscape, the miniature 16cm x 12.2cm, the folio 17.5cm x 22.6cm.