Object Details
- Description
- Detached folio from a dispersed copy of a Khamsa (Quintet) by Nizami; text: Persian in black nasta'liq script; recto: illustration: Couple with attendants, empty panel in the upper right; verso: text: Chapter thirty-one: discrediting overindulgence in eating, part from Khusraw va Shirin, 2 columns, 15 lines.
- Border: The painting is set in gold, blue, and black rulings on an illuminated, deep-blue paper with marginal medallions and cartouches. The text is set in blue rulings with gold floral scroll inner frame on an illuminated, deep-blue paper with marginal medallions and cartouches.
- Label
- From the Khamsa of Nizami. This single page comes from a dispersed copy of Nizami's Khamsa, or quintet, a classical Persian text fequently illustrated in the Safavid period. The scribe's name, along with the date and place he completed the text's transcription, is found in the still-extant colophon. Although the iconography of Khamsa illustrations has been established well before the Safavid era, this charming painting of two lovers and musicians in a garden does not seem to refer to any specific Khamsa episode. It may well be that the painting was added after 1513, either in Herat or in Bukhara, a city whose painters closely followed the Herat styles. The empty panel in the upper right, presumably reserved for a verse or a heading, also suggests that the manuscript was never entirely finished.
- Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art Collection
- Exhibition History
- Art of the Court of Shah Tahmasp (December 16, 1979 to August 14, 1980)
- Near Eastern Art—Paintings, Pottery (August 18, 1967 to February 10, 1972)
- Credit Line
- Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
- circa 1513
- Period
- Safavid period
- Accession Number
- F1967.8
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Manuscript
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- H x W (overall): 23.5 x 16 cm (9 1/4 x 6 5/16 in)
- Origin
- Herat, Afghanistan
- Related Online Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- See more items in
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
- Topic
- music
- Safavid period (1501 - 1722)
- lovers
- Afghanistan
- Arts of the Islamic World
- attendant
- Record ID
- fsg_F1967.8
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ye3003dc871-674c-4765-8025-077b8754785c
