Cleveland Museum of Art

An Episode from the Story of the Sasanian King Khusrau and His Beloved Shirin, from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami (1141–1209) (verso); Persian verses from a Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones) of Jami (d. 1492) (recto)

Date

1540–70

Medium

opaque watercolor, gold, silver, and ink on paper; double-sided

Culture

Iran, probably Shiraz, Safavid period (1501-1722)

Department

Islamic Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Khamsa is a collection of five narrative poems, one of which is dedicated to the romance of Khusrau Parviz (590–628), a Sasanian king of Iran, and Shirin, his beloved Armenian princess. The lovers are seated in a nocturnal landscape, indicated by the dark blue sky dotted with stars, painted with now tarnished silver. Shirin serves figs and pomegranates, symbolic of fertility, to Khusrau as attendants bring more figs and wine. Next to Shirin’s black horse, the musician at bottom right plays a tanbur , a long-necked, fretted lute. Khusrau’s turban has the anachronistic baton worn by Safavid royalty and the egret feather, an emblem of nobility instituted by the Mongols in the 1200s.

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