Shahnameh - Shah Jahan (1037-1068 AH / 1628-1658 AD) ordering his servants to take away a lion killed in a hunt
Thin, yellowish paper adhered to a sturdy pink paper frame
Size: 220x155 mm
Origin and time: Delhi (?), mid-17th century
Austrian National Library, Vienna
Inv. No. E 5271 (Tafel XVI)
Shah Jahan, his head in profile encircled by a soft halo, is sitting on a throne seat in the rear of the picture. He is wearing a golden, richly ornamented robe, and a hunting falcon is resting on his fist. In the front, his huntsmen are tying a lion with several bleeding wounds to an elephant that is visibly nervous and hard to tame. Numerous servants are spread over the picture. Towards the top, the painting is finished off by a steep, jagged mountainscape. In the front, a man is scooping out water from the stream flowing nearby.
The landscape shaded in soft-green and pink is viewed from a bird’s-eye perspective. The various horizontal levels, separated by sharply contoured lines on the ground, and the grouping of the depicted people give the image some sense of spatiality. The miniature painting is remarkably detailed and richly coloured with both flat and very bright colours. Especially the red, yellow and opaque white patches are eye-catching.
Very well-preserved Gujarati inscription on the back.
