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Lot Essay
The present painting depicts Isfandiyar's third exploit in which he slays a dragon, accompanied by a retainer holding a spear. The heroic figures envisioned here as Akbar-period Mughals wearing flat pagris (headgear) and jamas, on a dark-green flowering ground against a yellow flower-strewn hillside.
The color palette, costume details, facial types and floral sprigs (depicted as floating between foreground and background) suggest a date in the very early seventeenth century probably within the later reign of Akbar (1542-1605) and likely produced at Agra - a center of artistic activity patronized by members of the Mughal court.
The dispersed manuscript to which this leaf originally belonged contained approximately five hundred text folios written in very fine Nasta’liq script on highly polished paper with twenty-five lines to the page in four columns. Each folio with intercolumnar ruled lines in black, blue and gold some with cloudbands in gold. The manuscript appears to have contained approximately sixteen miniatures and five illuminated headpieces.
The color palette, costume details, facial types and floral sprigs (depicted as floating between foreground and background) suggest a date in the very early seventeenth century probably within the later reign of Akbar (1542-1605) and likely produced at Agra - a center of artistic activity patronized by members of the Mughal court.
The dispersed manuscript to which this leaf originally belonged contained approximately five hundred text folios written in very fine Nasta’liq script on highly polished paper with twenty-five lines to the page in four columns. Each folio with intercolumnar ruled lines in black, blue and gold some with cloudbands in gold. The manuscript appears to have contained approximately sixteen miniatures and five illuminated headpieces.