# Preface (verso) from a double-page frontispiece of a Shahnama of Firdausi (940-1019 or 1025)

**Unknown artist**  
c. 1444  
opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper  
Overall: 32.7 x 22 cm (12 7/8 x 8 11/16 in.)

Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.10.b. [The museum's record](https://clevelandart.org/art/1956.10.b).

## About this work

This text page is the first page of a Shahnama manuscript with an illuminated heading containing the basmala ("In the name of Allah, etc.") followed by the text of the preface to the Shahnama .

_Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art._

An unrecorded Iran, Shiraz, Timurid period (1370-1501) artist painted this in about 1444. It is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

### How it was made

- **Opaque watercolour.** Watercolour made opaque with white or chalk and laid in flat, even layers. Persian and Indian painters ground their colours from minerals, applied them with the finest brushes and burnished the finished page.
- **Watercolour.** Pigment in gum arabic, thinned with water and laid in transparent washes. Nothing white is painted: the light is the paper showing through.
- **Ink on paper.** Ink made from soot and animal glue, ground with water on an inkstone. A single brush can give a hair-fine line or a broad wash, and nothing can be corrected.

## Facts

- Type: Manuscript
- Culture: Iran, Shiraz, Timurid period (1370-1501)
- Real size: about 13 × 8½ in (33 × 22 cm). The 11 × 14 in print is close to life size.
- Century: 15th century
- Colour: brown
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/611.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/611/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/preface-verso-from-a-double-page-frontispiece-of-a-shahnama-cma-133449).