The Big Head Shahnameh
Rustam Shoots Ashkabus and His Horse
Folio detached from the Big Head Shahnameh
Iran, Lahijan, Gilan, 1494
Opaque watercolour, gold, and ink on paper
AKM92
With bursts of tangled, and at times graphic, violence littered across the page, many illustrations of the Shahnameh capture the heat and confusion of the text’s many battles. In this painting, however, the throes of war are rendered with an uncanny elegance. Here, the Iranian army, led by the hero Rustam (right), confronts their Turanian enemies, led by Ashkabus (centre left). Wearing his distinctive tiger-skin robe, Rustam fells his enemy with an arrow delivered with as much force and precision as a spear. By animating the illustration, we can picture the rapid exchange of arrows that whirr across the unoccupied space of the battlefield in tightly skewed angles.