Folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) by Nizami (d. 1209); Couple with attendants; verso: text: Chapter thirty-one: discrediting overindulgence in eating, part from Khusraw va Shirin

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)

• Origin

  Herat, Afghanistan

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Manuscript

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1500s, 1610s, 1600s, 1590s, 1540s, 1650s, 1530s, 1640s, 1520s, 1630s, 1510s, 1620s, 1580s, 1730s, 1690s, 1570s, 1680s, 1560s, 1670s, 1550s, 1660s

• Place

  Afghanistan, Herat

• Topic

  S?afavid dynasty, 1501-1736, Lovers, Art, Music, Arts of the Islamic World, Attendant

• Culture

  Muslims, Iranians

• Object Type

  Manuscripts