Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025)

1444

Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025), 1444. Iran, Shiraz, Timurid period (1370-1501). Opaque watercolor, ink, gold and silver on paper; recto image: 26.1 x 20.7 cm (10 1/4 x 8 1/8 in.); overall: 32.7 x 22 cm (12 7/8 x 8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1956.10 The painting on the recto of this folio is the second half of a double-page frontispiece now detached from a Shah-nama manuscript (see CMA 1945.169 for the first half of the frontispiece). The scene does not illustrate a narrative from the Shah-nama, but likely represents 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. From the upper left two trained cheetahs, a falcon, and horses are led into the scene.