Bahram Gur Hunting with Azada, from the Shahnama of Firdausi

Description

The Sassanian Shah Bahram V, who ruled from 420 to 428 C.E., is much celebrated in Persian tradition for his passion for women and hunting. (His favorite prey was the gur, a wild ass; hence his nickname.) This episode is a small homily on the dangers of mixing the two: One day Bahram Gur went out hunting with his paramour, the lovely Azada, a court musician. When they came upon a herd of gazelle, she challenged him to “change a buck into a doe and a doe into a buck.” Swiftly, he sliced off a buck’s horns with one shot of his bow and then hit a doe with two arrows in the head, giving her two prongs. He then set his sights on a third gazelle.
… The creature scratched
Its ear. Forthwith within his bow of Chach
He set an arrow and pinned head and ear
And foot together; but Azada’s heart
Was vexed about the deer. . .
Bahram stretched out,
Flung her from saddle headlong to the ground,
And made his dromedary trample her,
Besmearing hands and breast and lute with blood.
Warner, VI, 382–84
The unfortunate Azada lies prone in her blood-red robe beneath the camel’s feet, her harp flung aside. More than her plight, however, the artist has lavished his care and skill on the depiction of animals. In contrast to the formulaic (if beautiful) horses that appear in other scenes, here the camel is drawn at a convincing scale relative to its rider and with great sympathy. The pose of the stumbling gazelle is entirely convincing and the fleeing rabbits are full of energy. Freed from the restrictions of the conventional combat and audience scenes, the artist has produced a fresh and lively picture.
———
Maribeth Graybill, Senior Curator of Asian Art
Exhibited in "A Medieval Masterpiece from Baghdad: the Ann Arbor Shahnama"
August 14 through December 19, 2004