Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025) (1444): Art, History and Details

Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025) (1444) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The royal feast is set in a green landscape dotted with flowers and blossoming bushes against a gold sky with wisps of blue and white clouds. The group of figures in the upper left includes a falconer, horses, attendants, and two hunting cheetahs, while servers transport food and drink in gold and ceramic vessels, some presumably Chinese blue and white porcelain. Possibly this banquet was offered after a courtly hunt, a prestigious symbol of power and wealth. Among the groups of men sitting on elaborate carpets are three Chinese officials, identifiable by their black hats, kneeling together on the ground. Although their presence indicates the presence of foreign cultures within the Timurid court, the painting also reveals that not all are welcome to the feast; in the bottom half of the page a guard wields a stick to drive a group of men out of the garden.

Object facts

• Title: Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025)
• Date: 1444
• Culture: Iran, Shiraz, Timurid period (1370-1501)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Opaque watercolor, ink, gold, and silver on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 32.7 x 22 cm (12 7/8 x 8 11/16 in.); Image: 26.1 x 20.7 cm (10 1/4 x 8 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1956.10.a

A detail from the museum

The painting on this folio is the first half of a double-page frontispiece now detached from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) manuscript. CMA 1956.10 is the left half of the frontispiece.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.