"Khusrau Arriving at Shirin's Palace", Folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi

Amir Khusrau Dihlavi|Ala al-Din Muhammad

1520–25 · Opaque watercolor and gold on paper · Islamic Art

Although the manuscript was copied in the city of Balkh and completed in the year 1503 or 1504, Khosrow's headdess indicates that the miniature was added sometime after 1510, the year Shah Isma'il, the first Safavid ruler, captured that city. The fashion of having a tall baton top the cap around which the turban was wrapped–twelve times for the twelve imams–only appeared when that dynasty established the Shi'a sect of Islam as the state religion. The miniature is close in style to Herat painting of the latter part of the fifteenth century, although somewhat simplified in composition, architecture and landscape.

Artist

Amir Khusrau Dihlavi|Ala al-Din Muhammad

Date

1520–25

Medium

Opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Department

Islamic Art

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1913