Iskandar and the talking tree (detail), folio from the Great Mongol Shahnama (Book of kings), Iran, probably Tabriz, Ilkhanid dynasty, ca. 1330, ink, color, and gold on paper, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Collection, Purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1935.23
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
1050 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC
Monumental in size and boldly illustrated, the Great Mongol Shahnama is the most celebrated of all medieval Persian manuscripts. Considered Iran’s national epic, the Shahnama (Book of kings) was completed by the poet Firdawsi in 1010. The copy known as the Great Mongol Shahnama was produced three hundred years later, likely commissioned by ruler Abu Sa‘id of the Ilkhanid dynasty, a branch of the Mongol Empire. Between the manuscript’s covers, art, power, and history intertwined.
The Shahnama recounts the story of Iran from the beginning of time through the fall of the Sasanian dynasty in the seventh century. The illustrations in the Great Mongol Shahnama emphasize historical kings of Iran’s past, including Alexander the Great, known in Persian as Iskandar, and the pre-Islamic Sasanian monarchs, such as Ardashir I, Bahram Gur (Bahram V), and Kasra Anushirvan (Khusraw I Anushirvan). These figures served as role models to the Ilkhanid rulers, and the manuscript’s impressive paintings demonstrate how the Ilkhanids inserted themselves into Iran’s history.
An Epic of Kings offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see twenty-five folios from this now dismantled manuscript. It is also the first exhibition to present paintings from the Great Mongol Shahnama alongside contemporaneous works from China, the Mediterranean, and the Latin West. Experience this unique historical moment of cultural exchange across Eurasia—where commodities, people, and ideas circulated like never before—with Iran at its center.
