"Isfandiyar's Fifth Course: He Slays the Simurgh", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)

Esfandiyar's Fifth Course: He Slays the Simurgh

The prince Esfandiyar, in order to complete a rescue mission, must, like the great epic warrior Rustam, succesfully perform seven heroic feats. Esfandiyar's fifth feat was the slaying of the Simurgh. Here he is shown in his specially constructed horse-drawn box to which, according to the narrative, he had affixed projecting swords. When the great bird swooped down to seize the structure, it became impaled and Esfandiyar hacked it to pieces. This last act in the drama was chosen by the miniature painter, who depicts the stalwart hero wielding his upraised sword with both hands. In other parts of the Shahnama the Simurgh is the benevolent protector of the family of Zal and his son Rustam but here it is a fearsome bird of prey capable of carrying elephants, crocodiles, and leopards in its claws. In this it resembles the roc or "anqa" from the literary tradition of the fabulous and exotic. In paintings postdating the Mongol invasion, the Simurgh, as here, is always patterned on the Chinese feng-huang, or phoenix. The lush floral design including the peony and lotus bud on the horse's blanket and the overlapping planes of the foreground are also of Chinese derivation. The paintings of this manuscript, while certainly based on the style of painting practiced in Iran in the early fourteenth century, display elements of drawing, patterning, coloring, and use of space that suggest a Sultanate Indian provenance. Many Sultanate centers were greatly influenced, if not dependent on, Iran in their cultural development so that the style of these paintings is not inconsistent with an Indian provenance, but at this time such an attribution is not definitive.

Mary Lukens Swietochowski in [Berlin 1981]

Esfandiyar's Fifth Course: He Slays the Simurgh

Since Firdausi used various sources to write his epic, inconsistencies and even contradictions occasionally are found, as here, where the Simurgh is patterned on the Roc, a fearsome legendary bird of enormous strength and ferocity. The latter, however, bears no resemblance to the Simurgh, who is the guardian and succorer of the family of Zal. In this adventure Isfandyar went forth to meet his challenge in the same steed-drawn brake affixed with swords that he had devised for the dragon fight. The enormous bird swooped down and tried to seize the chariot with her talons but her legs and wings were pierced by the swords and her life ebbed away. Isfandiyar then emerged from his carriage and hewed her to pieces.

In the miniature Isfadiyar takes up the center of the composition, sitting in his box cart, from which the sharp swords have been omitted, and striking at the Simurgh's head with a sword he holds in both hands; the horse is at the left beneath a thick-leafed tree. Because there is not very much room at the right, the Simurgh is rather small and more decorative than frightening, with her patterned wings and long tail. This Simurgh does not yet follow the Chinese-phoenix model with its ribbon-like tails and long looped neck, but is more graceful by far than the rooster/parrot type (see 1974.290.2). A tiny mountain peak indicates the place from where she dropped down.

This illustration in the Second Small Shahnama is treated very differently. There, Isfandyar with his raised sword is standing at the left, while before him the Simurgh has been impaled on the spikes of the cart, of which only the wheels are visible. The carriage horse is galloping to the right under the flowing strands of the Simurgh's Chinese-phoenix tail.[1] In the 1330 Inju'id Shahnama in Istanbul Isfandyar, with raised shield, stands amid mountains at the left and slashes at the Simurgh's head with his sword. This Simurgh, based on the Chinese phoenix, takes up most of the rest of the composition. Two Central Asian-type wheels, resembling rosettes, are all of the cart that is shown. There are no horses.[2]

The Gutman leaf again is quite different from these other two, less detailed than the painting in the Small Shahnama and more so than the Inju'id one, but iconographically less au courant than the others, which are earlier in date.

Mary Lukens Swietochowski in [Swietochowski and Carboni 1994]

Notes:

1. M. S. Simpson. The Illustration of an Epic: The Earliest Shahnama Manuscripts. New York, 1979, no. 15 (Freer Gallery of Art, 45.22).

2. F. Cagman and Z. Tanindi, The Topkapi Sarayi Museum. The Albums and Illustrated Manuscripts. Translated, edited, and expanded by J. M. Rogers, Boston, 1986, no. 39, colorpl.

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

Berlin. Museum für Islamische Kunst, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. "The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the M.M.A.," June 15, 1981–August 8, 1981, no. 119.

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. 34.

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

Harari, Ralph, and Richard Ettinghausen. A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, edited by Arthur Upham Pope. vol. I–VI. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1938. ill. vol. V, pl. 832D (b/w).

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 119, pp. 282–83, ill. (b/w).

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. 34, pp. 71–72, 112–13, ill. p. 112 (color).