An Epic of Kings: The Great Mongol Shahnama 

A detail of a painting of a red-robed king, sitting atop a white horse, who is conversing with a small face emerging from a tree; the king's companions, also riding horses, look on behind him at the edge of the image.
  • Dates

    September 21, 2024–January 12, 2025

  • Location

    Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | Galleries 23 and 24

  • Collection Area

    Arts of the Islamic World

At A Glance

This exhibition focuses on a single copy of the Shahnama made around 1330 in Iran, not on the literary work completed by the Persian poet Firdawsi three hundred years earlier around the year 1010.

Monumental in size and boldly illustrated, the Great Mongol Shahnama is one of the most celebrated of all medieval Persian manuscripts. Considered Iran’s national epic, the Shahnama (Book of kings) was completed by the poet Firdawsi around 1010. The copy known as the Great Mongol Shahnama was made three hundred years later, likely commissioned by Abu Sa‘id of the Ilkhanid dynasty, a branch of the Mongol Empire that ruled over Iran and West Asia. Between the manuscript’s covers, art, power, and history intertwined.

The Shahnama recounts the story of Iran from the beginning of time through the fall of the Sasanian dynasty in the seventh century. The illustrations in the Great Mongol Shahnama emphasize historical kings of Iran’s past, including Alexander the Great, known in Persian as Iskandar, and the pre-Islamic Sasanian monarchs, such as Ardashir I, Bahram Gur (Bahram V), and Kasra Anushirvan (Khusraw I Anushirvan). These figures served as role models to the Ilkhanid rulers, and the manuscript’s impressive paintings demonstrate how the Ilkhanids inserted themselves into Iran’s history.

An Epic of Kings offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see twenty-five folios from this now dismantled manuscript. It is also the first exhibition to present paintings from the Great Mongol Shahnama alongside contemporaneous works from China, the Mediterranean, and the Latin West. Experience this unique historical moment of cultural exchange across Eurasia—where commodities, people, and ideas circulated like never before—with Iran at its center.


Explore this Exhibition

Folios in NMAA’s Collections

Divided into two volumes, the Great Mongol Shahnama may have originally comprised about 380 folios and over two hundred paintings, but the colossal project was never completed. The manuscript was removed from Iran under obscure circumstances in the early twentieth century. Around 1910, the Belgian art dealer Georges-Joseph Demotte bought the manuscript in Paris from an Armenian dealer. Demotte dismantled the Great Mongol Shahnama and sold its leaves individually. As a result of Demotte’s tragic intervention, the full manuscript was forever lost, and its surviving illustrated folios severely damaged.

The National Museum of Asian Art purchased six folios between 1923 and 1942. In 1986, the Smithsonian acquired the celebrated collection of the French jeweler Henri Vever, which included eight additional paintings from the manuscript. Today, NMAA houses the largest number of folios from the Great Mongol Shahnama in the world. The fourteen folios in the museum’s collections are presented here in order of appearance within the Shahnama’s text.


Shedding Light on the Shahnama

This video highlights recent scientific analysis of the illustrations on the fourteen Great Mongol Shahnama folios in the National Museum of Asian Art’s collections. Scientists used different forms of light to learn more about the pigment composition of the paintings and the creative process of Persian artists in the 1330s. They also identified possible alterations that may have been made centuries later.

Video Poster

Video | "Shedding Light on the Shahnama" | View on YouTube


Related Publication

The Great Mongol Shahnama

Author List: Robert Hillenbrand
Publisher: Hali Publications Ltd; National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
Publication Date: January 31, 2023

The Great Mongol Shahnama is widely considered to be the definitive version of Firdausi’s epic poem, and the greatest of all Persian illustrated manuscripts. The paintings from this manuscript are held in private collections and institutions around the world, and have only been seen together in a single volume once since they were originally dispersed. This monograph reunites the paintings and reproduces them as 67 full-page, high quality color plates, alongside an analysis by leading scholar of Islamic art, Robert Hillenbrand. With newly commissioned photographs and insights into technical aspects of the paintings, The Great Mongol Shahnama is a comprehensive resource for those interested in Persian art and manuscripts.

A book cover with a gold background. On the left, a bearded king sits on a throne overlooking two subjects to the right. The king wears an ornate blue and gold robe with a gold crown atop his head surrounded by a circular halo. At the foot of his thrown is a pile of bags filled with gifts. One of the subjects crouches and looks up at the king in adoration, hands raised. The other man stands on the right of the cover, smiling at the king and holding two more bags of gifts. In the top right corner, the title “The Great Mongol Shahnama” appears in red text.

Support

 

Support for this exhibition is provided by The Ebrahimi Family Endowment for Persian, Arab, and Turkish Art; the Persian Art Programs Endowment; the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Endowment; The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund; the Soudavar Memorial Foundation; and the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art in honor of Marsha E. Swiss.

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