Malik Shah Rustam in the Presence of Shah Isma'il, illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Tarikh-i `Alamara-yi Shah Isma`il

This is a folio with painting that has been detached from a manuscript of theTarikh-i `Alamara-yi Shah Isma`il. Four lines of Persian in nastal'iq script frame a painting of figures kneeling in a garden pavilion. A caption in red ink in the left margin identifies this scene as "Malik Shah Rustam in the Presence of Shah Isma`il." The main figures in the scene are identified by inscriptions written on their bodies. The kneeling figure framed by the architecture is Isma'il and the rotund, white-bearded figure is Malik Shah Rustam. The painting illustrates an episode from the life of the Shah Isma`il (d. 1524), founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran that took place around the year 1508. The story relates the arrival of the Lur chieftain Malik Shah Rustam at the royal camp. Delighted by the chieftain's accent, Isma'il ordered that Malik Shah's beard be filled with gems, and further ordered a jewel-studded cover for it. This painting is unsigned, but it is almost certainly the work of Mu`in Musavvir, one of the most prolific Persian artists of the seventeenth century and the last important practitioner of the classical style.