Rustam shoots Shaghad from the spiked pit, from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi

Mu'in Musavvir

Rustam shoots Shaghad from the spiked pit, from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi. Fatally trapped with his champion horse Rakhsh in a pit of poisoned spikes, Rustam shoots an arrow at his betrayer Shaghad, piercing a tree trunk to kill him. This is one of ten folios detached from its codex (also in the Chester Beatty collection, Per 270), the second volume in a two-volume set of this text, illustrated by the Isfahan painter Mu`in Musavvir. Volume one is in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (Ms22): its colophon is dated Jumada II 1064H (April 1654), with four of its paintings dated 1065H or 1067H (1654-1657). Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian text in nasta`liq script, with rubric ("Rustam pins Shaqad to a tree with an arrow", in white) and painting (on recto), from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi (codex CB Per 270), painting signed Mu'in Musavvir, Isfahan, Iran, 1655.