Daily grace

Painting of king enthroned

1515–35, Tabriz, Iran

ink and opaque pigments on paper, leaf

This book leaf comes from the one of the most ambitious copies ever made of the Shahnama (“Book of Kings”), a 50,000-couplet poem written by the Persian poet Firdawsi around 1000 A.D. It recounts Iran’s history from the creation of the world to the seventh-century destruction of Iran’s Sasanian dynasty by Islamic Arabs. This copy, with 258 illustrations and numerous illuminations, was prepared for Shah Tahmasp I, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1524 to 1576. It includes 10 illustrations of Kay Kavus, a king said to have ruled prehistoric Iran for 150 years, including this rendering of a visit by his grandson. In each painting, Kavus’s face and hands are painted black to indicate that he was foolish. His inept reign, the setting for one of the poem’s longest sections, features a tragic feud between Kavus and his son Sohrab, a war with the enemy kingdom of Turan, and a failed attempt by Kavus to invade heaven in a flying machine powered by four tethered eagles.