Cleveland Museum of Art

An East African King Receives Three Emissaries, from a Khamsa of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi

Date: c. 1450
Medium: gum tempera and ink on paper
Culture: India, Sultanate period
Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

The text on this page discusses the wars between Morocco and Zang, a region of eastern Africa centered in present-day Ethiopia. In the painting the King of Zang meets three envoys. The dramatic gesture of the Zangi king, who stretches out one hand as he takes an enormous stride toward the envoys, identifies him as a powerful, assertive figure. This page is from the first known manuscript of a Persian literary text illustrated by an Indian artist, who had probably been trained in the Jain manuscript tradition. The figures are arranged on one plane in a straight line against a flat red background, typical of manuscript painting in India in the 1400s.

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