English: An illustrated and illuminated leaf from the Tarikh-i ‘alam-ara-yi Abbasi of Iskander Bayg Munshi: the capture of Yerevan citadel, Persia, Isfahan, circa 1650

Gouache heightened with gold on paper, a line of text at the upper and lower edge in nasta'liq script in black ink, laid down on an album page, reverse with 21 lines of text

This illustrated leaf originates from a rare illustrated manuscript of the Tarikh-i 'alam-ara-yi 'Abbasi, the history of Shah 'Abbas by Iskandar Munshi. Few examples survive from such a manuscript, as unlike the Mughals and Ottomans, the Safavids tended not to produce lavish manuscripts of their own reigns and histories.

The leaf belongs to a group of paintings produced in Isfahan during the first half of the seventeenth century, some of which were previously thought to be Ottoman (see, for example, a group of leaves from a Timurnama of Hatifi in E. Binney, 3rd, Turkish Miniature Paintings and Manuscripts from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd, Los Angeles, 1973, pp.126-7, nos.48a and b). Another similar illustration is in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, from a manuscript of the Akhlaq-i Muhsini, dated 1640 (see Y.A Petrosian (ed.), De Bagdad à Ispahan: manuscrits islamiques de la filiale de Saint-Pétersbourg de l’Institut d’études orientales, Académie des sciences de Russie, exhibition catalogue, Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, 1994, no.46).

Iskander Bayg Munshi chronicled the reign of Shah 'Abbas, completing it in 1628-29. Many of the events described in the history he witnessed himself, in his post as a secretary in the royal chancellery.