A striped-sailed ship crosses a sea of fish and a scaled creature

A ship with pink-and-white striped sails carries turbaned passengers across a blue-grey sea, its hull flecked with gold, sailing past a second small boat and a shoreline of dark green trees and a white domed shrine against a solid gold sky. Striped gold and pale fish leap from the water and two white ducks with orange faces swim nearby, while a grey scaled sea-creature with a clawed foot surfaces near the stern. The small painting sits within a page of nasta'liq verse, illustrating a voyage from the Shahnama of Firdausi.

The Shahnama, or Book of Kings, is the Persian national epic: a verse history of Iran from its first kings to the Arab conquest, completed around 1010 by the poet Firdausi of Tus (c. 940–1020). Its illustrations were painted in later centuries for the rulers and patrons who commissioned copies. Illustrated manuscripts survive from the Ilkhanid period onward, from the First Small Shahnama of the early fourteenth century to Shah Tahmasp's great copy made in Tabriz, and later volumes from Qazvin, Herat and Bijapur in the Deccan. Leaves from these dispersed manuscripts are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.