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Plate 26.5 ‘Rustam deflects a rock’, in Firdawsi, Shahnama, 1430s. Plate 26.6 ‘Timur celebrates his conquest of Delhi in December
Opaque watercolours, ink and gold on paper. The Bodleian 1398’, page from a dispersed copy of The Zafarnama (Book of
Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS Ouseley Add. 176, fol. 272b Victories) by Sharaf al-din Ali Yazdi, copied by Ya’qub ibn Hasan
known as Siraj al-Husayni al-Sultani at Shiraz for Ibrahim Sultan b.
Shah Rukh, 1436. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler
Museum, Bequest of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1960.198
Plate 26.7 A page from a Shahnama manuscript depicting Faridun
enthroned in the palace of Zahhak, dated 1444. Height 24.2cm,
width 23.2cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Suppl. Persan 494
centre. Pictorial evidence linked to the reign of Ibrahim
Sultan provides the clearest indication of the way in which
the Zheng He voyages contributed to the distribution of
Chinese ceramics in the Near East. In addition to these
well-known voyages, Chinese ceramics also appear to have
been distributed by land-based convoys. 20
As was the case with the luxurious Chinese textiles that
appear to have reached Shiraz during the reign of Iskandar
Sultan, most of the information about the appearance of
Ming ceramics in Timurid Iran comes from vessels depicted
in manuscripts made at Timurid courts in Shiraz and Herat.
Three paintings from Shiraz ranging in date from c. 1430 to
1444 suggest that the volume and variety of Chinese
ceramics in use at the court in Shiraz grew with time.
The first example comes from a copy of the Shahnama of
Firdawsi made for Ibrahim Sultan and believed to date from
21
the 1430s. One of this manuscript’s spare compositions
focuses on the hero Rustam who deflects a rock with his right
foot while seated on the ground drinking from a golden cup
and roasting meat on a spit over a fire (Pl. 26.5). The
solitary Chinese blue-and-white bottle on the ground beside
him is decorated with a landscape that includes a bird
swimming on a small pond. This same object is depicted on
another folio of this Shahnama manuscript depicting
Firdawsi’s conversation with the court poets of Ghazni. In

232 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450