A marbled picture of Rustam catching Rakhsh (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

A marbled picture of Rustam catching Rakhsh (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shafi (Indian, active about 1650).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This scene depicts the young hero Rustam catching a foal, Rakhsh (meaning “light”), who will be his faithful companion through many adventures. A prophet-like shepherd figure with a staff at the upper left predicts that Rustam will be the savior of Iran. At the top of the page a feline has caught its prey, while a hunter steps on its tail. This extraordinary painting has more applications of marbled colorant than any other known example. Even all the flowers and birds have been articulated through marbling in a feat of registration and control by a master of the technique.

Object facts

• Title: A marbled picture of Rustam catching Rakhsh
• Date: c. 1650
• Creator attribution: Shafi (Indian, active about 1650)
• Culture: India, Bijapur, Deccan
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 37.2 x 21 cm (14 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.286

A detail from the museum

Even the flowers and insects used as filler in this composition were marbled.

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.