Rustam and Isfandiyar, a page from the Great Il-Khanid (Mongol) Shahmana (Book of Kings)
Sheet: 15 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches (40.01 x 29.21 cm)
Exhibition of Persian Art, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia October 11-November 25, 1926, no cat.
The Fourteenth Loan Exhibition: Mohammedan Decorative Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts, October 21-November 23, 1930, no. 18 as Miniature from a manuscript of The Book of Kings by Firdawsi representing the combat between Rustam and Isfendiayar.
International Exhibition of Persian Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, January 7-March 7, 1931, no. 446a as Rustam and Isfandiyar Fighting.
Persian Art: Before and After the Mongol Conquest, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, April 9-May 17, 1959, no. 140 as Combat between Rustam and Isfandiyar.
The Miniature in Persian Art, The Arts Club of Chicago, April 9-May 9, 1963, no. 30 as Rustam and Isfandiar.
Islamic Painting from American Collections, The School of Art and The Department of Religion, Syracuse University, April 6-26, 1967, no. 22 as Rustam and Isfandiyar.
Classical Style in Islamic Painting: Examples from American Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, November 6, 1968-January 4, 1969, no. 8 as Rustam and Isfandiyar in Combat.
Imperial Images in Persian Painting, Edinburgh, Scottish Arts Council, August 13-September 11, 1977, no. 193(f) as Combat between Rustam and Isfandiayar.
Composed in 1010 by the poet Firdawsi, the Shahnama epic tells the stories of Iran’s ancient kings and heroes. This folio is from a monumental version commissioned by Abu Sa‘id (reigned 1317–1335), the ruler of the Mongol state in Iran. Though only 57 illustrated pages survive, scholars believe the manuscript originally had 280 pages, making it one of the grandest Persian books ever created. This page tells how the Persian king Gushtasp instructed his son Isfandiyar to capture Rustam, a Hercules-like hero. Here, the two young men meet in battle for the first time.
Imperial Library, Gulistan Palace, Teheran, Iran, by 1909 [1];
With Dikran Kelekian, Paris, on joint account with Demotte, Paris, by 1913 [2];
With P. Jackson Higgs, New York, by 1926 [3];
Mary A. I. Blair (Mrs. Chauncey J, née Mitchell, 1856-1940), Chicago and Los Angeles [4];
Purchased from Blair by Wells Objects of Art, Inc., New York, by 1930 [5];
Purchased from Wells Objects of Art, Inc. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.
NOTES:
[1] A letter from Edward C. Wells, in the NAMA accession file, explains that the original manuscript left Iran with a man named Raffy with the assistance of Shah Mallayan.
[2] Wells (see note 1) indicated that the dealers Kelekian and DeMotte acquired and shared interest in the manuscript by 1913.
[3] P. Jackson Higgs is listed as the lender of this folio to a 1926 Persian exhibition organized by Arthur Upham Pope. See The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, 22, no. 107 (November 1926): 245-51.
[4] The letter from Wells (see note 1) states that he acquired the folio from Mrs. Chauncey J. Blair.
[5] The Fourteenth Loan Exhibition: Mohammedan Decorative Arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts, October 21–November 23, 1930 credits the loan to E. Wells, New York.
Arthur Upham Pope, “Special Persian Exhibition,” in The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin 22, no. 107 (November 1926): 250-51, (repro.).
Julian Garner, “Four Illustrations from a Shahnama,” in International Studio (March 1928): 43-45, (repro.).
The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Fourteenth Loan Exhibition: Mohammedan Decorative Arts, exh. cat. (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1930), 18.
Royal Academy of Arts, Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Persian Art, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1931), 236.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 82, 88, (repro.).
“Rare Examples of Islamic Art in the Minassian Collection,” in The Art News 37, no. 10 (December 3, 1938): 16, (repro.).
Doris Brian, “A Reconstruction of the Miniature Cycle in the Demotte Shah Namah,” in Ars Islamica 6 (1939): 102-03, fig. 13, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 135, fig. 5, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 175, (repro.).
Ivan Stchoukine, “Les Peintures du Shah-Nameh Demotte,” in Arts Asiatiques 5, no. 2 (1958): 92-93, 96, (repro.).
William Lillys, Persian Miniatures: The Story of Rustam (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1958), 4, 6, 12, 26-27, repro.).
Oleb Grabar, Persian Art: Before and After the Mongol Conquest, exh. cat. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Museum of Art, 1959), 43.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 249, (repro.).
Asia Magazine 2, no. 14 (April 8, 1962): 19, (repro.).
Everett McNear, The Miniature in Persian Art, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Arts Club of Chicago, 1963), unpaginated.
Ernst J. Grube, Islamic Painting from American Collections, exh. cat. (Syracuse, The School of Art, Syracuse University, 1967), 12.
Ernst J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting: The Early School of Herat and its Impact on Islamic Painting of the Later 15th, the 16th and 17th Centuries (Germany: Edizioni Oriens, 1968), pl. 8, 185, (repro.).
Lisa Golombek, “Toward a Classification of Islamic Painting,” in Richard Ettinghausen, ed., Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972), 27, fig. 7, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, Art of the Orient, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 160, (repro.).
Robert Hillenbrand, Imperial Images in Persian Painting, exh. cat. (Edinburgh: Scottish Arts Council Gallery, 1977), 87.
Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 2-5, fig. 1, fig. 4, 96-97, 179, (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 402, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 28, fig. 16, (repro.).
