Ṭahmūras defeats the demon army, attributed to Reẓā `Abbāsī (d. 1635), from the Book of Kings (Shāhnāma)

Reza `Abbasi, attributed to

Ṭahmūras defeats the demon army, attributed to Reẓā `Abbāsī (d. 1635), from the Book of Kings (Shāhnāma). Across a rocky mountain, king Ṭahmūras and his army defeat the rebellious dīvs (or demons). On horseback, Ṭahmūras delivers a blow with his mace to the Black Dīv, while his forces scatter the others. The demons offer to surrender, and promise in return for peace that they will teach the art of reading and writing to mankind. Tahmuras learns almost thirty scripts. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian text in nasta`liq script, with painting (on recto), illuminated rubric ("Jamshīd's reign was sixty years", on verso), and gold-painted borders, from the Book of Kings (Shāhnāma) by Abū al-Qāsim Firdausī (d. 1020), attributed to the early reign of Safavid Shāh `Abbās I (r. 1587-1629), Qazvin or Isfahan, Iran, undated, c. 1590-1600. This is one of twenty-two folios in the Chester Beatty, all from the same partial copy (possibly never fully completed) of Firdausī's Shāhnāma: ten folios are in a modern binding, twelve are mounted separately. Most of these folios are not directly sequential, and fall into three sets, narrating the earliest kings, Farīdūn and his descendants, and Rustam.