"Kai Kavus Falls from the Sky", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi

Kai Kavus Falls from the Sky

A div (devil) persuaded Kai Kavus to attempt to fly to heaven, either to learn its secrets or to rule it as he did the earth, according to different sources for the story. The method Kai Kavus devised was to tie four strong yet hungry eagles to a throne, each with a leg of lamb tied to a post above it, so that in striving to reach the meat the eagles would lift the throne heavenward. The plan worked. However, as the epic tells us, the eagles eventually became exhausted and discouraged, so that the whole apparatus fell back to earth, with the shah miraculously escaping injury. All illustrations of this adventure, except this one, depict Kai Kavus on his throne ascending into the sky; some include astounded spectators on the ground below.

In this unique miniature, Kai Kavus is falling head-first into a flower bed, the legs of lamb beside his head and the jumbled eagles above emphasizing the compelling force of gravity. Although he landed alone in a forest, far from help, here onlookers gesture toward him in amazement. It was the unique iconography of this painting as well as the strong central axis, the bilateral symmetry, the circle of flower heads, the star pattern on the throne, and the red ground in conjunction with the other colors—all found in later Indian painting—that led to the mistaken conclusion of a provenance on the subcontinent for this manuscript.

Mary Lukens Swietochowski in [Swietochowski and Carboni 1994]

Ph. Walter Schulz, Leipzig, Germany (by 1914); Professor O. Moll, Düsseldorf, Germany ; Monroe C. Gutman, New York (by 1929–d. 1974; bequeathed to MMA)

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images: Persian Painting of the 1330s and 1340s," February 1–May 1, 1994, no. 15.

Schulz, Ph. Walter. Die Persisch-Islamische Miniaturmalerei. Vol. vols. I, II. Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1914. vol. 1, pp. 14, 74–75, ill. vol. 2, pl. 17.

Grube, Ernst J. "from Collections in the United States and Canada." In Muslim Miniature Paintings from the XIII to XIX Century. Venice: N. Pozza, 1962. no. 19, pp. 28–29, ill. pl. 19.

Swietochowski, Marie, and Richard Ettinghausen. "Islamic Painting." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., vol. 36, no. 2 (Autumn 1978). pp.10, 11, ill. (color).

Masuya, Tomoko. "The Condition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Small Shahnama and the Reconstruction of its Text." In Poetry and Epic Images, edited by Marie Lukens Swietochowski, and Stefano Carboni. New York, 1994. pp. 129–45.

Swietochowski, Marie, Stefano Carboni, Tomoko Masuya, and Alexander H. Morton. Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images : Persian Painting of the 1330s and 1340s. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. no. 15, p. 91, ill. frontispiece, pl. 15 (color).