Looking at this calligraphic composition by Isma'il Jalayir, one's eye is immediately drawn to the bold lettering and even distribution of the inscription in nasta'liq—an elegant and lyrical script that originated in Iran and Central Asia during the second half of the fourteenth century and was also admired in Mughal India and Ottoman Turkey. The inscription is a poem about the virtues of kingship, praising the ruler, Nasir al-Din Shah, the fourth ruler of the Qajar dynasty (r. 1848-1896), likening him to a flame in the night chamber of kingship and the seedling of the "garden of sovereignty" whose moonlike forehead emanates imperial light and eternal protection.

With a closer look, one can see that there is much more to this composition than the large, eye-catching inscription: tiny vignettes depicting courtly life surround the verses, complimenting them and also reinforcing the overall meaning of the painting. When the painting first came into the Museum, these vignettes were hardly visible and were concealed under a thick film of dirt and grime. Knowing the value of what was underneath, we sent the painting to The Met's Department of Paper Conservation, where conservator Yana van Dyke spent countless hours painstakingly cleaning the painting, restoring it to its near-original vibrancy and revealing its wonderful details.

Included in the vignettes are a portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah hunting astride a horse with attendants, ladies playing musical instruments, men conversing, Sufi figures in contemplation, animals in combat—all placed in an Edenic landscape of fruit-bearing trees, flowers, and an extraordinary assemblage of animals. The landscape represents the artist's vision of paradise with imaginary architectural vistas of hybrid, fantastical buildings illuminated by the gentle rays of the setting sun at the top left. References to dusk and nocturnal imagery are suggested in the verses and in the overall dark palette of the painting. The minute size of the figures and animals is astounding; some are as small as a fingernail, which attests to the artist's remarkable ability to work on a small scale. The artist's signature along with his title, naqqashbashi (court painter), appears in the lower left-hand corner.

The artist, Isma'il Jalayir, was a visionary painter of the second half of the nineteenth century in Iran. Versatile and innovative, Jalayir painted a range of subjects in different media such as portraits of the ruler, courtly figures and members of the elite, religious imagery of Shiʿi, biblical and Sufi nature, and a handful of detailed calligraphic compositions like this example. Perhaps the most magical of all his works, several of these precious calligraphic compositions were intended for Nasir al-Din Shah himself, celebrating his rule by placing him within a paradisiacal setting resembling the Garden of Eden with an assemblage of animals unprecedented in the history of Persian painting.