Room 11
Persian Manuscript Painting
1430–1630, Iran and Herat (present-day Afghanistan), Timurids and Safavids
At the courts of Herat, Tabriz and Isfahan, painters illustrated the great works of Persian poetry: Firdausi’s Book of Kings (Shahnama), Nizami’s Five Poems, the verses of Hafiz. Bihzad, the most famous of them, turned manuscript painting around 1500 into an art of lively figures and close observation. When he headed the royal workshop in Tabriz from 1522, Sultan Muhammad worked there for Shah Tahmasp on one of the most splendid books ever made; in Isfahan, Riza-yi Abbasi created elegant single pages for collectors.