
Cleveland Museum of Art
Rustam's seventh course: He kills the White Div, folio 124 from a Shah-nama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 934–1020)
Mir MusavvirLinkedCulture matchlcp-812d408ab5a8
- Date
- 1520–37
- Medium
- Gum tempera, ink, gold, and silver on paper
- Culture
- Iran, Tabriz, Safavid period (1501-1722)
- Department
- Islamic Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 154288
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The legendary hero Rustam brutally takes the demon chief’s liver blood, needed to cure his king of blindness. Paintings from the Shah-nama made for the Persian ruler Shah Tahmasp (reigned 1524–76) were acclaimed in their day for their brilliant coloring and refinement. Seven of the artists who contributed to this book moved to India to lead the new Mughal painting workshop in the 1550s. They introduced to the Indian artists a more complex color sensibility and preference for presenting faces in three-quarter view, as opposed to in profile. The Shahnameh is a mixture of a mythology and a history of the Iranian people.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Provenance
- 1520s–1567: Shah Tahmasp شاه تهماسب یکم [1514–1576], Iran, given to Ottoman Sultan Selim II | 1567–?: Ottoman Sultan Selim II [1524–1574], Istanbul, Ottoman Empire | until early 1900s: Topkapı Palace library, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire | early 1900s–?: Baron Edmond de Rothschild [1845–1934], Boulogne-Billancourt, France | ?–October 14, 1988: Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. [1906–1990] | October 14, 1988: (Christie's, London, UK, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1988–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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