Lot 32
A QAJAR ILLUSTRATED LEAF FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF FIRDAUSI'S SHAHNAMA: ISKANDAR COMING TO DARAB TO APOLOGISE
PERSIA, SECOND QUARTER OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Auction: 09 December 2026 from 14:00 GMT
Description
gouache on paper heightened by gold, eight lines of nasta'liq text in black ink above the image and two lines below, heading written in red ink, depicting two groups of horsemen converging in the mountains, to the foreground two men fight as their horsemen look on, gold, black and blue margin lines, mounted, glazed and framed
Dimensions
sight seen 30cm x 17.4cm
Provenance
The collection of David Howard Maude-Roxby-Montalto, 14th Duke of Fragnito (b. 1934).
Footnote
A related folio from the same manuscript, depicting the second battle between Kay Khusraw and Afrasiyab, is preserved in the Wellcome Institute (QCC2664.13). It is illustrated and discussed in B. Brend and C. Melville, Epic of the Persian Kings: the Art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 209-210, no. 88.