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An East African King Receives Three Emissaries, from a Khamsa of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi
c. 1450
- Medium
- gum tempera and ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 28.6 x 21.6 cm (11 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- India, Sultanate period
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The text on this page discusses the wars between Morocco and Zang, a region of eastern Africa centered in present-day Ethiopia. In the painting the King of Zang meets three envoys. The dramatic gesture of the Zangi king, who stretches out one hand as he takes an enormous stride toward the envoys, identifies him as a powerful, assertive figure.
This page is from the first known manuscript of a Persian literary text illustrated by an Indian artist, who had probably been trained in the Jain manuscript tradition. The figures are arranged on one plane in a straight line against a flat red background, typical of manuscript painting in India in the 1400s.
