The Death of Afrāsiyāb

Location: The David Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark, #217/2006, folio 41a.
Page: 35.2 x 21.8 cm.
Painting: 23.3 x 11.6 cm. including painted spaces between the text columns. (Scaled)
Text area: 28.9 x 14.6 cm. (Scaled)
Signature in the center of the lower margin: raqam-e kamina moʿin-e moṣavver.

This painting is out of place in the manuscript and has been inserted near where Rostam Kills the White Div was removed. (See Appendix I.) Afrāsiyāb was finally caught by the Iranians and brought before Kay Ḵosrow. After reminding Afrāsiyāb of all the noble and royal Iranians he had executed, Kay Ḵosrow beheaded him. Through the splattered red-brown blood Afrāsiyāb's white moustache is visible, attesting to his advanced age at the time of his death. The treatment of rocks that swoop toward the moody sky is typical of the work of Moʿin, as is the grouping of figures around the periphery of the image. Unlike the first five illustrations in the manuscript, this one is signed in the border below the outer marginal lines.

For a later version of this subject also painted by Moʿin see ms E, 4-268

Painting references:
Canby_ Journal_2010, p.63 no.6 and p.88, fig.20.

Text references:
Warner, IV, pp.266-69.

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

Sheila R. Canby
Last Updated: July 4, 2014 | Originally published: 2010