Bižan and the Wild Boars

Location: The David Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark, #217/2006, folio 121b.
Page: 35.2 x 21.8 cm.
Painting: 23.1 x 11.4 cm. including painted spaces between the text columns. (Scaled)
Text area: 28.5 x 14.1 cm. (Scaled)
Signature in the center of the lower margin: raqam-e kamina moʿin-e moṣavver.

One of the subject populations complained to Kay Ḵosrow that wild boars were destroying their orchards. In response, he sent the young Bižan to combat them. When Bižan found them in the forest, he shot them with arrows and then beheaded them. While the boar in the foreground has been shot with arrows, the one next to it has been stabbed or sliced. Bižan is depicted jamming his dagger into a boar's neck. Although Bižan had traveled to the forest with Gorgin, Moʿin has included only Bižan in this painting. Moreover, the forest vegetation found in many illustrations of this episode is absent here, represented by only one tree on the mountain­side.

Painting references:
Canby_ Journal_2010, p.69 no. 20 and p.96, fig.28.

Text references:
Warner, III, pp. 292-94.

Photo: Permille Klemp. Courtesy of The David Collection, Copenhagen

Sheila R. Canby
Last Updated: June 20, 2014 | Originally published: 2010