"Tahmuras Defeats the Divs", Folio 23v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmaspca. 1525
Tahmuras, the third king in Ferdowsi’s Shahnama, earned the title ‘Binder of Demons’ by riding out against the divs, the horned spirits of chaos in Persian legend, and subduing them with his mace. More about this work
About this work
Tahmuras, the third king in Ferdowsi’s Shahnama, earned the title ‘Binder of Demons’ by riding out against the divs, the horned spirits of chaos in Persian legend, and subduing them with his mace. To save their lives, the defeated demons taught him the art of writing, a gift he passed on to his people. The painters of Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnama, made at the Safavid court in Tabriz around 1525, gave the divs a lively, almost comic menace. The manuscript was later presented to the Ottoman sultan Selim II, and its pages are now divided among collections around the world.
Written by Ochre Editions.
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.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1970.301.3
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Codices
- Department
- Islamic Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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