A detail of the 'Siege of Baghdad' from a 1436 Zafarnama
(Book of Victories) of Sharaf al-din 'Ali Yazdi (1424-54)

"Siege of Baghdad", Folio from a Dispersed copy of the Zafarnama (Book of Victories)
Author: Sharaf al-din 'Ali Yazdi ([active] 1424–54)
Date: Dhu'l Hijja 839 A.H./A.D. June–July 1436
Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, silver, and gold on paper
Accession: 67.266.1
Shiraz

This folio once illustrated a manuscript of the Zafarnama, a biography of the ruler Timur commissioned by his grandson Ibrahim Sultan. The text glorifies Timur’s many victories on the battlefield, including his 1401 siege of Baghdad, depicted here. The distinctively spare yet highly animated angular compositions are characteristic of manuscript painting produced in Shiraz in this period.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art