Amherst College Lecture: Persian Manuscripts

Visit Amherst College for Professor Yael Rice's lecture on Persian manuscripts, Oct 7, 5-6pm!

From Amherst website:

Bringing the Book of Kings to Safavid Isfahan: Firdausi’s Shahnama at the Chester Beatty, Dublin

MON, OCT 7, 2024, 5 - 6PM
FAYERWEATHER HALL, Pruyne Lecture Hall

Bequeathed to the people of Ireland in 1968, Alfred Chester Beatty’s museum-collection numbers over 25,000 objects, and is dedicated primarily to the written word and the arts of the book. There are over 300 Persian manuscripts, including remarkable illustrated copies of the Book of Kings (Shahnama), Firdausi’s literary masterpiece composed just over one thousand years ago. This lecture examines two of these, both produced in Isfahan, the capital city of the Safavid dynasty, but in different circumstances and at fifty years’ separation. The first seems to show the early-career work of the virtuoso painter Reza `Abbasi, still startling court contemporaries with his easy talent. The second manuscript was produced rather later, and illustrated by Reza’s former student Mu`in Musavvir, labouring more steadily in an established Isfahan mode that was fast falling out of royal favour.

Free and open to the public.

Contact Info
Heather Ruggeri
(413) 542-2365
finearts@amherst.edu