Lohrāsp and his Sons

Location: Current whereabouts unknown; formerly in the Rothschild Collection.
Page: not known
Painting: 23.5 x 11.5 cm.
Text area: not known
Signature: faintly written in the center of the lower margin: raqam-e kamina moʿin-e moṣavver.

When he abdicated his throne, Kay Ḵosrow designated Lohrāsp to succeed him. Lohrāsp asked for and received the fealty of the great lords. The first chapter in this section begins with a passage on Lohrāsp and his two sons, Goštāsp and Zarir, and two grandsons of Kay Kavos, whom Lohrāsp favored over his sons. Most likely his own sons are the youths depicted here seated at the right, wearing gold crowns, though the text does refer anonymously to the grandsons of Kay Kavos.

Moʿin has presented a classic courtly scene with Lohrāsp enthroned in an alcove that opens to a tiled terrace on which his sons and two musicians are placed in the foreground. Two male cupbearers stand at the right, while two female servants attend the king with incense. Moʿin's standard murals with birds and vegetation in blue have been varied slightly to include water birds in red in the two niches above Lohrāsp. While the subject of the illustration is not the most dramatic, the enthronement may be doubling as both an illustration and a subject fitting for a frontispiece.

Painting references:
Robinson, Colnaghi_1976, p.78, no.55iii (ill. in color), where it is identified as “Lohrāsp’s Coronation Feast”.
Canby_ Journal_2010, p.72 no.28 and fig.13

Text references:
Warner, IV, pp.318-19; Mohl, IV, pp.225-26; Levy, pp.181-82.

Photo after Colnaghi catalog.

Sheila R. Canby
Last Updated: July 9, 2014 | Previously published Eng: March 29, 2011 | Originally published Canby: 2010