AN ILLUSTRATED AND ILLUMINATED LEAF FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF FIRDAUSI'S SHAHNAMEH: HUSHANG KILLING THE BLACK DEMON, PERSIA, SAFAVID, QAZVIN OR MASHHAD, 988 AH/1580 AD

Sotheby's London, 22 April 1980, lot 271.

This lively painting, which covers almost the entirety of the leaf, originates from a manuscript sold at Replica Shoes 's in April 1980, which bore a colophon with the name of the scribe Qutb al-Din Ibn Hasan al-Turi, dated 988 AH/1580 AD. The best among the four attributed painters of the Shahnameh's miniatures, 'artist A', is considered responsible for the present painting, which would originally have been folio 13a. Two further paintings by the same artist were included in the 2010 exhibition Epic of the Persian Kings, the Art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see Brend and Melville 2010, pp.172-5, nos.68 & 69).

The painting is illustrated in a style close to that of Qazvin and Mashhad in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and can be compared to a near-contemporary Shahnameh dated 1576-77 published in Colnaghi 1976, pp.32-47. The exquisitely-painted rocks are a striking feature common to both manuscripts. Another leaf from the same manuscript was offered in these rooms 9 April 2014, lot 82.