English: SHAH ISMA'IL IN BATTLE WITH THE KING OF SHIRVAN

MU'IN MUSAVVIR, ISFAHAN, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Gouache heightened with gold on paper, a lively battle scene against a white rocky landscape, with Shah Isma'il killing an enemy, at the centre of a group of armed cavalrymen, his grey coat with identification inscription, between six lines of black Persian nasta'liq in cloud bands on gold ground, with pink gold heightened border and gold margins with white rule, mounted on black card decorated with fine gold flowers and outer red rule, unframed, areas of minor damage Miniature 6 x 6in. (15.2 x 15.2cm.); Folio 14 1/8 x 9¼in. (35.8 x 23.5cm.)

Another contemporary copy of the Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran, complete with all its miniatures exists in the British Museum and it is in this example that A.H.Morton found both the title of the work and the name of the author. Eleanor Sims writes that until this juncture, the text of the manuscript had remained unidentified, but had several provisional names (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). Stchoukine called it a 'History of Shah Isma'il'; B.W.Robinson, writing of another miniature apparently from the same manuscript called it called it Tarikh-i 'alam ara-yi Shah Isma'il.