"Bahram Gur's Skill with the Bow", Folio 17v from a Haft Paikar (Seven Portraits) of the Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja

Author Nizami
Calligrapher Maulana Azhar

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 455

Depicting the Persian hero Bahram Gur hunting with his harp‑playing companion Azada, this painting is one of five illustrations created for a fifteenth-century manuscript of Nizami’s Haft Paikar (Seven Portraits). The manuscript was produced in the celebrated kitabkhana (workshop) established by the Timurid prince Baisunghur (r. ca. 1420–33) during his governorship at Herat. This important workshop created some of the canonical illustrations to Nizami’s text—immediately recognizable, repeated, and emulated over the subsequent centuries.

#6704. Overview: Foils from the Haft Paikar, Part 1

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  1. 6704. Overview: Foils from the Haft Paikar, Part 1
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"Bahram Gur's Skill with the Bow", Folio 17v from a Haft Paikar (Seven Portraits) of the Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, Nizami (present-day Azerbaijan, Ganja 1141–1209 Ganja), Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

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