During a battle between the Iranians and the Turanians, a sorcerer named Bazur (shown here in a blue cape) climbs to the top of a mountain and creates a blizzard that engulfs the Iranian forces. In the ensuing confusion, the Turanians attack, causing heavy casualties. This painting comes from a copy of the highly Persianate Shahnama that was probably made in northern India. The paintings from this book were later cut out and placed in an album with brightly colored borders.
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20.120.248
Artwork Details
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Title:"Bazur, the Magician, Raises up Darkness and a Storm", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)
Author:Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (Iranian, Paj ca. 940/41–1020 Tus)
Date:ca. 1430–40
Geography:Attributed to India
Medium:Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions:H. 7 3/4 in. (19.7 cm) W. 8 1/8 in. (20.6 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:The Grinnell Collection, Bequest of William Milne Grinnell, 1920
Accession Number:20.120.248
Bazur the Turanian Wizard
The long struggle between the Turanians and the Iranians is a continuing theme through much of the Shah-nama. Numerous armies of countless paladins stain endless fields with their blood. At times, supernatural techniques heighten the encounters. Here, the warlock Bazur, at the order of the Turanian commander in chief, Piran, ascends a mountain and casts spells to engulf the Iranians in darkness, cold, and dense snow. The devastating weather issues in vigorous noxious squiggles from the yogilike shaman's bottle, producing ornamental blobs of snow that have already begun to disturb the intrepid Iranian cavalry and make some of the hidden grotesques in the craggy mountains shiver.
The dispersed manuscript from which this miniature comes has been recognized since the 1950s as being from one of the sultanates. Well before 1430, painting from what might be described as the Turkish-Iranian tradition was being carried out in many fresh sultanate idioms at centers in Kashmir, the Punjab, Delhi, Bengal, Malwa, Gujarat, and the Deccan. These workshops were often staffed not only by Indians but by artists trained in Iran at Shiraz, Tabriz, Herat, or even beyond, who adjusted their styles to the more intense Indian cultural clime. Neither this manuscript nor a related Shah-nama, of about 1450, also dispersed, can be assigned a precise provenance.[1]
[Stuart Cary Welch 1985]
Footnotes:
1. For the related Shah-nama of ca. 1450, see: Fraad, Irma L., and Ettinghausen, Richard. "Sultanate Painting in Persian Style, Primarily from the First Half of the Fifteenth Century: A Preliminary Study." In Chhavi: Golden Jubilee Volume. Banaras, 1971, fig. 152.
William Milne Grinnell, New York (until d. 1920; bequeathed to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "INDIA !," September 14–September 14, 1985, no. 75.
Joseph Breck. "The William Milne Grinell Bequest." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., vol. XV (1920). pp. 273–75.
Binyon, Laurence, Basil Gray, and James Vere Stewart Wilkinson. "Including a Descriptive Catalogue of the Miniatures Exhibited at Burlington House." In Persian Miniature Painting. London, 1933.
Dimand, Maurice S. "New York, October 9 through January 7, 1933–1934." In A Guide to an Exhibition of Islamic Miniature Painting and Book Illumination. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1933. p. 28.
Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammadan Art. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1944. pp. 38–39.
Welch, Stuart Cary. India: Art and Culture 1300–1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985. no. 75, pp. 130–31, ill. p. 131 (color).
Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (Iranian, Paj ca. 940/41–1020 Tus)
15th century
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