Painted by Sultan Muhammad
From a Shahnameh, around 1515-22 in Tabriz
I love the motion and colours in this painting. It illustrates a quite wonderful episode from the Persian epic poem Shahnameh (Book of Kings). It was probably painted for Shah Is`mail, the first Shah of Iran from the Safavid dynasty.
Rustam is the great Iranian hero, who plays a starring role in the Shahnameh. His constant companion is his horse Rakhsh, no less a hero than his master.
Here Rustam is on a mission to rescue his Shah, who has been captured by demons. Taking a dangerous and fatiguing route through the mountains, Rustam is overcome by exhaustion and lays down to sleep. Unknowningly, he has chosen to nap in the den of a ferocious lion!
As he sleeps, the lion returns and attacks! But the valiant Rakhsh awakes and fights the lion. After a violent struggle, the super-horse kills the lion, defending both himself and his master. Rustam then wakes up and berates his heroic horse for fighting the lion without waking him. They then return to their nap.
The expressive depiction of the rocks and the figures in the painting are spectacular. The Chinese-style clouds float over a green flowering of trees and shrubs. Especially impressive is the naturalistic colourings and poses of Rakhsh and the lion, while Rustam looks quite relaxed as he naps in his trademark tiger-skin tunic and leopard hat.
The painting is by Sultan Muhammad, who was an important painter in the early Safavid times at the royal atelier in Tabriz. I like his paintings for his Chinese clouds, naturalistic renderings of trees and animals, and his crazy-looking rock formations. One of his later paintings is The Miraj, the ascent of the prophet Muhammad, in which you immmediately recognize those distinctive clouds.
A great many Persian miniatures illustrate various scenes from the Shahnameh. Because of its length, the commissioning of an illustrated Shahnameh manuscript was a great and incredibly expensive endeavour, taking several years and the work of the most talented calligraphers, illustrators, and illuminators in the land.