A book for a palace

This painting is a page of a Persian book manuscript made for Sultan Husayn Bayqara of the Timurid dynasty. He was a great-great grandson of the emperor Timur or Tamerlane, who once ruled over much of Asia and the Middle East.

In Husayn Bayqara’s time, the territory of the Timurids had become smaller but still included the rich region of Khorasan. Between 1470 and 1506, Husayn Bayqara ruled over this region from his splendid court in the city of Herat, today located in the west of Afghanistan.

Husayn Bayqara is especially known for his sponsorship of art and literature, and he was a poet himself. Somewhere in the 1480s he commissioned a manuscript copy of the Bustan or “Orchard” – a popular book on morals and ethics, completed in 1257 by Saʿdi of Shiraz. Its contents were useful for a king, but the copy itself had to be worthy of a king too. That is why this copy was prepared by a team of the best calligraphers and painters of the age.

In the era of Husayn Bayqara, books were always copied by hand and because of that, books were a rare commodity. But a book with paintings such as this one was extremely rare and costly. Such prestigious objects underlined the political power and importance of the Sultan.