Royal Reception in a Landscape, right folio from a double-page frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025)

1444

Royal Reception in a Landscape, right folio from a double-page frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025), 1444. Iran, Shiraz, Timurid period (1370-1501). Opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper; overall: 32.5 x 22.1 cm (12 13/16 x 8 11/16 in.); recto image: 27.7 x 10.3 cm (10 7/8 x 4 1/16 in.); verso image: 26.3 x 20.7 cm (10 3/8 x 8 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1945.169 The painting on the verso of this folio is the first half of a double-page frontispiece now detached from a Shah-nama manuscript (see CMA 1956.10 for the second half of the frontispiece). The scene does not illustrate a narrative from the Shah-nama, but is likely a representation of the courtly audience for whose entertainment the manuscript was created. The date and style of the painting indicate that it was made during the reign of the Timurid dynasty in Shiraz, Iran. Seemingly uninterested in the emissaries and gifts, a prince kneels with six royal women under an open tent and tries to coax one to have a drink.