Text Page, Persian Prose (recto); The Story of Adam peace upon him, his Sons and Progeny (verso) (c. 1425): Art, History and Details

Text Page, Persian Prose (recto); The Story of Adam peace upon him, his Sons and Progeny (verso) (c. 1425) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These two pages are from a manuscript that evidently was written and illustrated for the library (at Herat) of the Timurid king Shah Rukh, the son of Timur (Tamerlane). The Majma' al-Tawarikh traced the history of the world, beginning with the prophets of the Old Testament until the reign of Shah Rukh.

Object facts

• Title: Text Page, Persian Prose (recto); The Story of Adam peace upon him, his Sons and Progeny (verso)
• Date: c. 1425
• Culture: Afghanistan, Herat, Timurid period (1370–1501)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink and opaque watercolor on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 42 x 32 cm (16 9/16 x 12 5/8 in.); Text area: 34.5 x 22.7 cm (13 9/16 x 8 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1945.384

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Binyon, L., Wilkinson, J.V.S., and Gray, B., Persian Miniature Painting (London, 1933), no. 28, p. 46, p.46, p.35.
• Dimand, M.S., A Handbook of Muhammadan Art (New York, 1944), pp. 30-31.
• Grube, E. Muslim Miniature Paintings from the XIII to XIX Centuries (Catalogue of the 1962 exhibition), pp. 51-53.

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.