Again, the BL blog comes up trumps. Another digitised Persian manuscript is available to us all – and it’s another glorious Khamsah of Nizami.
This story never goes away – a Deccan version of the book sold for £194,500 at the April Sotheby’s auctions; and I’ve already signposted how the BL gave me a way-in to appreciating the hybrid nature of some Safavid paintings – as offering a “view into that era’s notions of foreignness, gender, and kingship”.
The Timurid Khamsah that is now out for us all to look at includes a great image of Harun al-Rashid, being shaved – a parable in Makhzan al-Asrar (‘Treasury of Secrets’), the first of the five books of the Khamsah
As the blog describes, the painting should be read, like Persian text right-to-left. The plain door to right indicates that the place is relatively private. The main room has men dressing and undressing – politely not looking at each other. Then the left hand room is reserved – for the moment of the painting – for the Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, being tended to by a barber and another attendant.
Apparently, the barber repeatedly asks to marry the Caliph’s daughter. The Caliph consults his Vizier, “remarking that it seems unwise to subject oneself to the double threat of an actual razor and a dagger-like word”. The vizier then suggests that maybe the barber’s impertinence is because he is standing over a great treasure: the Caliph should order him to move. And when the barber does that, he no longer acts as the Caliph’s equal. And when they dig, a treasure is indeed found.
Look too, for the crown perched on the pile of the Caliph’s clothes in the undressing room; the soot over the lamps in the hot room; and the careful use of colour for the unglazed floor tiles. My favorite bit, though, is the blocks of blue towels and that dynamic propping/collecting stick.