Cleveland Museum of Art

Farhad Kills Himself After Hearing the False News of Shirin’s Death

Amar Das BhattiLinkedCulture matchlcp-64e1c2061855

Date: c. 1810
Medium: gum tempera and gold on paper
Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Marwar, Rajput Kingdom of Jodhpur
Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 314504

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

A man’s lifeless body is being observed by a group of women. A kneeling woman with a halo and wearing fine garments is Shirin, the beloved of the dead man, Farhad. Farhad cut a canal of milk through a mountain pass as a proof of his love, but on hearing the false news of her demise, he jumped off the mountain and killed himself. An Islamic town characterized by domes can be seen in the diminishing background.

View at Cleveland Museum of Art ↗

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page

See at Cleveland Museum of Art

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.

Shirin Visiting Farhad

Minneapolis Institute of Art

#1200

A scene of the life of Alexander from the Sharaf-nameh

Cleveland Museum of Art

#443834

Velvet Fragment, Khusrau Sees Shirin Bathing

Cleveland Museum of Art

#124015

Velvet Fragment, Khusrau Sees Shirin Bathing

Cleveland Museum of Art

#124014

Mahrusa kills herself at the tomb of the king of Zabul, and her husband does likewise, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-sixth Night

Cleveland Museum of Art

#137660

"Farhad Carves a Milk Channel for Shirin", Folio 74 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

#446595

Fragment of a Funerary Shroud

Art Institute of Chicago

#55038

The sentinel in the employ of the Shah of Tabaristan prepares to sacrifice his son to the ghost of the Shah’s soul, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Second Night

Cleveland Museum of Art

#137488