2-723-503 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Banqueting Scene with Khusrau and Shirin, from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami (1141-1209), 1540-70. The Khamsa is a collection of five narrative poems, one of which is dedicated to the romance of Khusrau Parviz (590-628), a pre-Islamic king of Iran, and Shirin, his beloved Armenian princess. Khusrau’s turban has the anachronistic baton worn by Safavid royalty and the egret feather, an emblem of nobility instituted by the Mongols in the 1200s. Here the lovers are seated before a tent in an idyllic landscape at night, indicated by the dark blue sky dotted with stars, painted with now tarnished silver. Shirin serves figs and pomegranates, symbolic of fertility, to Khusrau as attendants bring more figs and wine. Next to Shirin’s black horse, the musician at bottom right plays an oud , a stringed instrument similar to a lute.