"Farhad Carves a Milk Channel for Shirin", Folio 74 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja

Various artists/makers

Not on view

In Nizami’s tale of Khusrau and Shirin, the princess Shirin has an ardent admirer in the talented sculptor and stonemason, Farhad. When Shirin desires milk from a herd of goats that graze in a distant field, Farhad sets to work cutting a channel from the goats’ mountain pastureland to a pool at the foot of Shirin’s palace. In this painting, Shirin visits Farhad upon his completion of the pool. At the very top of the composition, a goat cavorts in its hillside home.

"Farhad Carves a Milk Channel for Shirin", Folio 74 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, Nizami (present-day Azerbaijan, Ganja 1141–1209 Ganja), Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

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