"Rustam Kills the White Div", Folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings)

Rustam Kills the White Div

The Iranian shah Kai Kavus had been taken prisoner, with his troops, by the divs (devils) of Mazandaran. The last of the seven feats Rustam had to perform for their rescue was to kill the White Div, who lived in a dark cavern. Here, the Div and Rustam are seen standing and engaged in battle, although Rustam has already cut off the Div's leg. (A later restorer, unfamiliar with the story, clumsily reattached it.) Rakhsh, alone, waits before the mountains.

In the First and Second Small Shahnamas the White Div is back with Rustam astride him, Rustam already having cut off one of the Div's legs (in the First Manuscript). A div's head pokes up over the top of the cave, while Ulad, Rustam's unwilling guide, tied to a tree, and Rakhsh, awaits him (see MMA 69.74.7).[1] In the St. Petersburg manuscript of 1333 Rustam is standing and the outsized White Div is sitting, legs seemingly intact, with no other figures included.[2] Again, the Gutman epic scene falls somewhere between the more courtly and polished Small Shahnamas and the more simplified Inju'id manuscript.

Mary Lukens Swietochowski in [Swietochowski and Carboni 1994]

Footnotes:

1. Simpson, M. S. The Illustration of an Epic; The Earliest Shahnama Manuscripts. New York, 1979, nos. 27, 28.

2. Adamova, A.T. and L. T. Giuzal'ian. Miniatiury rukopisi poemy "Shakhname" 1333 goda. St. Petersburg, 1985, no. 11.

Ph. Walter Schulz, Leipzig, Germany (by 1914); Professor O. Moll, Düsseldorf, Germany ; Monroe C. Gutman, New York (by 1929–d. 1974; bequeathed to MMA)

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images: Persian Painting of the 1330s and 1340s," February 1–May 1, 1994, no. 13.

Schulz, Ph. Walter. Die Persisch-Islamische Miniaturmalerei. Vol. vols. I, II. Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1914. vol. 1, pp. 74–75.

Masuya, Tomoko. "The Condition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Small Shahnama and the Reconstruction of its Text." In Poetry and Epic Images, edited by Marie Lukens Swietochowski, and Stefano Carboni. New York, 1994. pp. 129–45.

Swietochowski, Marie, Stefano Carboni, Tomoko Masuya, and Alexander H. Morton. Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images : Persian Painting of the 1330s and 1340s. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. no. 13, p. 89, ill. (b/w).