Royal Reception in a Landscape, left folio from the double frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 940–1019 or 1025)
Unknown Artist
1444
Medium
Opaque watercolor, ink, gold, and silver on paper
Dimensions
32.7 × 22 cm · image: 26.1 × 20.7 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Islamic Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1956.10.a
About this artwork
The royal feast is set in a green landscape dotted with flowers and blossoming bushes against a gold sky with wisps of blue and white clouds. The group of figures in the upper left includes a falconer, horses, attendants, and two hunting cheetahs, while servers transport food and drink in gold and ceramic vessels, some presumably Chinese blue and white porcelain. Possibly this banquet was offered after a courtly hunt, a prestigious symbol of power and wealth. Among the groups of men sitting on e...