The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 7, 2024

Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits]

Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits]

c. 1400–1410
opaque watercolor and ink on paper
Image: 18.7 x 12.3 cm (7 3/8 x 4 13/16 in.); Overall: 23.2 x 15.5 cm (9 1/8 x 6 1/8 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1944.486.a
Location: not on view

Description

The Khamsa, a suite of five poems written by Nizami in the 12th century, recounts the history and legends of pre-Islamic Iran with an emphasis on love rather than war. Here, in an early extant depiction of a favorite story, Shah Bahram Gur visits a princess in a black pavilion; this is one of seven paintings depicting the king visiting one of his seven wives, each in a different colored pavilion, on successive days of the week. The princess is shown telling a story after a day of lovemaking.
  • Islamic Art: Selected Examples from the Loan Exhibition of Islamic Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944. Reproduced: p. 15 archive.org
  • Islamic art rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 16, 2015-December 19, 2016).
    Main gallery rotation (gallery 116): December 16, 2015 -
  • {{cite web|title=Bahram Gur Visits the Princess of India in the Black Pavilion (recto): Illustration and Text, Persian Verses, from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami, Haft Paykar [Seven Portraits]|url=false|author=|year=c. 1400–1410|access-date=07 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1944.486.a