Epic book 'like Dante's Divine Comedy illustrated by Michelangelo'

The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, the great national epic of Iran is to Persian painting what the Book of Kells is to Celtic art, says Des O'Sullivan 

A detail from the illustration in The Shahnameh.

One of many extraordinary lots to come up at auction this year was a folio from The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp. 

The illuminated manuscript from the 16th century recounts the history of Persian rulers in 50,000 rhyming couplets.

The great national epic of Iran preserving the Persian language runs to 258 illustrated pages and is to Persian painting what the Book of Kells is to Celtic art.

A detail from the illustration in The Shahnameh.

Benedict Carter, head of Islamic and Indian art at Sotheby's, spelled out how awesome this publication is in the following terms: "It's like the equivalent to Dante's Divine Comedy — if it had been illustrated by Michaelangelo, Titian, Correggio, and others."

Over decades in the 1520s, '30's and '40s at least 15 of the greatest painters of the time devoted themselves to the full project. 

The illustrated folio page sold at Sotheby's in London in October for just over £8 million is attributed to the artist Mirza 'Ali and demonstrates his mastery in a large composition that spills into the margins and creates a captivating scene in which the hero Rustam recovers his horse Raksh.

A folio from The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp.

The Persian Book of Kings has an illustrious provenance. It was commissioned by Shah Ismail (first of the Safavids) and completed by his son Shah Tahmasp, gifted to Sultan Selim II of the Ottoman Empire and later owned by the Barons de Rothschild. 

Folios from the Shahnameh are treasured today in museums like the Metropolitan in New York, the Smithsonian in Washington, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the David Collection, Copenhagen, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran.