English: SHAH ISMA'IL'S TROOPS MAKING AN ASSAULT ON AN UZBEK FORTRESS, THE SCALING PARTY LED BY BAYRAM KHAN

MU'IN MUSAVVIR, SAFAVID ISFAHAN, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Gouache heightened with gold on paper, a battle rages between cavalry and foot soldiers in front of a castle whilst two men look on, one trumpeting, from the upper right hand corner, set within six cloud bands of black Persian nasta'liq within an orange illuminated border and mounted on blue washed paper with gold floral design and red, black-ruled outer margins, unframed Miniature 5 7/8 x 6in. (14.9 x 15.2cm.); Folio 14 1/8 x 9¼in. (35.8 x 23.5cm.)

These miniatures come from a dispersed copy of Bijan's text Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran, the known illustrations of which, Eleanor Sims writes, present the first Safavid shah of Iran as a divinely inspired ruler and a princely hero following the mode of Firdawsi's Shahnama (Eleanor Sims, 'A Dispersed Late-Safavid copy of the Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran, published in Sheila R. Canby (ed.) Safavid Art and Architecture, Cambridge, 2002, p. 54). The text was compiled in the 1680s by a 'minor late-Safavid historian, almost certainly a Georgian, who signs himself as qissa-yi safavi-khwan' (Sims, op. cit., p.54).

Other folios from the same manuscript are in the Nasser David Khalili collection and the Art and History Trust Collection. One sold at Sotheby's, 30 June 1980, lot 243, four in the same Rooms (Property of the Baltimore Museum of Art), 22nd/23rd March, 1986, lots 151-4, and another on 20 June, 1980, lot 243. All of the above, and the others known, have illustrations found between panels of prose set in cloud bands against gold ground. All are mounted on variously coloured card with gold floral illumination.