"Isfandiyar Slays Arjasp", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)

Isfandiyar Slays Arjasp

The only way Isfandiyar can enter the magically impregnable Brazen Hold is by a ruse, disguised as a merchant with a caravan of incredibly rich and desirable goods. He has come to rescue his imprisoned sisters, kept there by the Turanian chieftain Arjasp. Isfandiyar releases his troops, who are hidden in the caravan boxes, and they capture the Brazen Hold, killing all its defenders, with the Iranian hero personally dispatching the reprehensible Arjasp. Although the fight within the Brazen Hold takes place in the middle of the night, Arjasp is shown having just stepped down from his throne, behind which a guardian is standing. Isfandiyar has grabbed him by the hair, as if for an execution, and is cleaving his head in two with a sword, although the epic relates that Arjasp, wakened by the din of fighting, put on his mail and armed himself. A fallen enemy lies before the palace gateway at the left, within which a seated figure can be seen. In spite of the lack of strict adherence to the text, the spirit of the narrative is dynamically presented.

This event is illustrated in both the Freer and the First Small Shahnamas but neither of these miniatures has been published.[1]

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, pp. 359 (Copenhagen, OS 1971-98), 372 (Chester Beatty Library, Ms. 104.39).

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. 35.

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. 35, pp. 72, 113–14, ill. p. 113 (b/w).