Cleveland Museum of Art

Bahram Gur Arrives at the House of a Merchant, text page (recto), from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025), known as the Great Mongol Shahnama

Date: 1330–35
Medium: opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper
Culture: Iran, Tabriz, Ilkhanid period (1256-1353)
Department: Islamic Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

In this intense painting, Bahram Gur plunges his sword into the breast of a dragon. A favorite character from Iran's pre-Islamic history, Bahram Gur (reigned 420–38 CE) was a popular ruler of the Sasanian dynasty and a great hunter. He took the name "Gur," meaning onager (a wild ass), because it was his preferred game, although he also excelled at killing dragons. As evidenced by this illustration's rock formations, tree trunk, and dragon, Iranian painting in the Mongol period borrowed numerous stylistic and spatial elements from Chinese models. With the surging landscape and writhing dragon rendered with equal energy, this is a picture of extraordinary unity and concentration. The Shahnama , a poem written by Firdawsi around 1010, tells the history of ancient Iran.

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