While out hunting, Bahram Gur encountered an awesome dragon. He shot two arrows into it and cut it open with his sword. The shah was horrified to find a dead youth inside it. Half- blinded by his grief for the youth and by the dragon's venom, Bahram pulled the body out of the dragon. In spite of the patch over the center of the picture, the scene is quite clear. The shah's horse appears stiffly-even crudely-drawn, but the foliage of the tree on the left and the stalwart determination expressed by the figure of Bahram are well executed.
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Title:"Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)
Author:Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (Iranian, Paj ca. 940/41–1020 Tus)
Date:ca. 1330–40
Geography:Attributed to Iran, probably Isfahan
Medium:Ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper
Dimensions:Page: H. 8 in. (20.3 cm) W. 5 1/4 in. (13.3 cm) Painting: H. 1 5/8 in. (4.1 cm) W. 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Bequest of Monroe C. Gutman, 1974
Accession Number:1974.290.36
Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon, Which, When Killed, Reveals a Dead Youth Inside
Bahram Gur, while out hunting, saw an awesome dragon. He shot an arrow at its chest and then at its head. The shah then dismounted and cut the dragon open with his sword. Inside was a dead youth it had swallowed. Bahram, blinded by his grief for the youth and by the dragon's venom, pulled the body out of the dragon. Here, in spite of the large patch in the center of the picture, the youth can be seen being pulled out of the dragon by Bahram. The shah's horse is rather more crudely drawn than is usual in the miniatures in the manuscript, giving this painting a rather more provincial quality, although the tree, which has thick, natural-looking foliage, redeems it.
Iconographically, the illustration of this story in the First Small Shahnama is not so different,[1]but the Gutman painting has a characteristic robust quality and an immediacy that is totally lacking in the earlier miniature. In the 1333 Inju'id Shahnama in the State Public Library, St. Petersburg, the beginning of the encounter is illustrated: Bahram is mounted, his bow drawn, and the large-headed Central Asian-type dragon is very much alive. In the poem the dragon is described as like a lion and here it has been provided with a lion's legs and paws.[2] In the Great Ilkhanid Shahnama yet another moment in the struggle is illustrated. Bahram has dismounted, having shot his arrows into the dragon's head and chest, and is at the point of plunging his sword into the animal's chest.[3]
Mary Lukens Swietochowsky in [Swietochowsky and Carboni 1994]
Notes:
1. M. S. Simpson. The Illustration of an Epic: The Earliest Shahnama Manuscripts. New York, 1979, no. 42 (Chester Beatty Library, Ms. 104.58); A.J. Arberry, M. Minovi, and E. Blochet, The Chester Beatty Library: A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts and Miniatures. J. V. S. Wilkinson, Dublin, vol. I, 1959, pl. 10b.
2. A. T. Adamova and L. T. Giuzal'ian, Miniatiury rukopisi poemy "Shakhname" 1333 goda. St. Petersburg, 1985, no. 41.
3. O. Grabar and S. Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History. The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama. Chicago and London, 1980, no. 49 (The Cleveland Museum of Art, 43.658).
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. 41.
Schulz, Ph. Walter. Die Persisch-Islamische Miniaturmalerei. Vol. vols. I, II. Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1914. vol. 1, pp. 74–75.
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. 41, pp. 73, 118–19, ill. pl. 41 (b/w).
Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (Iranian, Paj ca. 940/41–1020 Tus)
15th century
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