The Bowman, frontispiece from The Epic of Kings, Stories Retold from Firdusi

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (written by Helen Zimmern (1846-1934); published by Thomas Fisher Unwin, London)

1882

Medium
Etching in black on cream wove paper
Classification
Print
Dimensions
Image: 18.7 × 13.7 cm (7 3/8 × 5 7/16 in.); Plate: 19.7 × 14.7 cm (7 13/16 × 5 13/16 in.); Sheet: 29.8 × 22.9 cm (11 3/4 × 9 1/16 in.)
Culture
England
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
Credit line
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the Art Institute of Chicago

About this work

This etching is one of two prints that Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema made to illustrate Helen Zimmern’s 19th-century translation of the great Persian epic poem Shahnameh (The King’s Book) by Firdusi from around A.D. 1000. Consisting of some 60,000 verses, the Shahnameh recounts the mythical and historical past of greater Iran, beginning with the creation of the world and the introduction of arts and civilization. It concludes with the Arab conquest of Persia.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0