The Court of Gayumars

Gayumars, the legendary first king of Persia, holds court from a mountain ledge in the age when men still dressed in leopard skins and the beasts lived at peace among them. Sultan Muhammad hides hundreds of tiny faces in the swirling, rainbow-colored rocks, so the whole landscape seems alive and watching. It was painted for a spectacular royal copy of the Shahnama, Iran's national epic, made for Shah Tahmasp, and is often called the single greatest Persian miniature. Persian painting at the summit of its ambition.