Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits] (c. 1400–1410): A

Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits] (c. 1400–1410) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The Khamsa, a suite of five poems written by Nizami in the 12th century, recounts the history and legends of pre-Islamic Iran with an emphasis on love rather than war. Here, in an early extant depiction of a favorite story, Shah Bahram Gur visits a princess in a black pavilion; this is one of seven paintings depicting the king visiting one of his seven wives, each in a different colored pavilion, on successive days of the week. The princess is shown telling a story after a day of lovemaking.

Object facts

• Title: Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits]
• Date: c. 1400–1410
• Culture: Iran, possibly Tabriz or Shiraz, Timurid Period, early 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: opaque watercolor and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 18.7 x 12.3 cm (7 3/8 x 4 13/16 in.); Overall: 23.2 x 15.5 cm (9 1/8 x 6 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1944.486.a

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Islamic Art: Selected Examples from the Loan Exhibition of Islamic Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.

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.