"Buzurgmihr Masters the Game of Chess", Folio from the First Small Shahnama (Book of Kings)
Author: Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (935–1020)
Object Name: Folio from an illustrated manuscript
Date: ca. 1300–30
Geography: Made in Iran or Iraq
Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions: Painting: H. 1 15/16 in. (4.9 cm) W. 4 13/16 in. (12.2 cm)
Page: H. 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm) W. 5 1/4 in. (13.3 cm)
Mat: H. 19 1/4 in. (48.9 cm) W. 14 1/4 in. (36.2 cm)
Classification: Codices
Credit Line: Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1934
Accession Number: 34.24.1
The text of the Shahnama has its own version of how the game of chess was introduced into Iran from India. In order to avoid paying tribute to the Sasanians, the rajah of Hind (India) sent an envoy challenging the Iranian ruler to figure out how this game was played. The clever vizier Buzurjmihr secured the tribute for his king by solving the problem. The Iranians are dressed in Mongol costume, whereas the erudite vizier wears Arab-style tunic and turban. The Indian envoy, all alone among the Iranians as if underscoring his defeat at the game, is typically represented as a dark-skinned man wearing baggy clothes and a loose turban. The composition, set against a plain gold background, is strictly symmetrical, focusing attention on the three main characters in the center and especially on the stark white of the chessboard.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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In a famous story from the Shahnama, the king of Hind challenged Nurshivan (the Sasanian ruler Khusraw I Anushirvan, (r. 531–79), to decipher the rules of the game of chess, at that time unfamiliar to the Persians. Buzurjmihr, a wise councelor at the Iranian court not only deciphered the rules but defeated the Indian emissary and, so the story goes, proceeded to invent backgammon.

Here, as is typical in medieval chess, treatises from the Islamic world, and in manuscripts illustrating Firawsi's epic story of the invention of chess, red and black distinguish the two sides. At the time when this Shahnama was executed, Iran was still under the domination of the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty (1256–1353) and this political situation is reflected in the distinctly Mongol appearance of the king and courtiers.
[Asia Society 2004]

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New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Title of Work: Shahnama (First Small)
Manuscript: 25.68.1, 34.24.1-6, 57.51.33, 69.74.1-9
Accession Number: 34.24.1r
Chapter 41 - Kisra Anushirvan (48 years)
Scene: Buzurjmihr demonstrates how to play the game of chess
Dimensions (h x w): 47 x 120 mm
Format: Rectangular, breaking through frame
Reconstructed Folio: 265r
Gregorian Date: 1300 (circa)
School: Baghdad
Source: Shahnama Project