Iran, Tabriz · 1330–35 · manuscript painting
A dragon changes
its landscape.
A Persian hero confronts a dragon. Cleveland’s account points beyond the subject to Chinese models in the painting’s dragon, rocks and tree.
Look / Try / Return to the object
What travels besides the subject?
Complete supplied image
The complete supplied image of the verso. No exact Chinese model is supplied.
The record
A story with its own history
Bahram Gur belongs to Iranian history and the Shahnama tradition. A relationship to Chinese pictorial models does not erase that setting. Subject, visual language and political context are different parts of the work.
Artologium reading
Look beyond the creature
The museum’s explanation names rocks and tree trunk as well as the dragon. Our observation controls follow those three elements without claiming that any one surviving Chinese picture supplied them.
Artologium reading
A route with an open end
The missing exact source is useful knowledge. We can describe a supported relationship between traditions while leaving the specific model unresolved. A modern comparison may sharpen the eye; it cannot fill that historical gap.
The evidence stays with the story
What we know.
What remains open.
Supported relationship
Cleveland describes Chinese stylistic and spatial models in this painting’s rock formations, tree trunk and dragon.
Read the institution record ↗Description of the complete manuscript leaf, second paragraph.
The boundary
The account concerns models and visual traditions, not a proven source painting. The other works in our motif passages are comparisons, not proposed ancestors of this page.
Surviving material: Paper (ink, opaque watercolor, and gold) · Manufacturing technique: Manuscript illumination. Our observation controls and diagrams are labeled editorial studies. Source images are unmarked in the viewer.
The research behind this view
Follow the evidence.
AI-assisted institutional source review and original close reading; independent specialist review pending.
Research version pattern-dragon.1 · checked 2026-10-24 · independent specialist review pending.
Read the shared research record ↗Sources, qualifications & review notes
Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon (verso), from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025), known as the Great Mongol Shahnama ↗
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Description of the complete manuscript leaf, second paragraph.
Cleveland describes Chinese stylistic and spatial models in this painting’s rock formations, tree trunk and dragon.
The account concerns models and visual traditions, not a proven source painting. The other works in our motif passages are comparisons, not proposed ancestors of this page.
Checked 2026-10-24 · source-text. Official institution API fields reviewed, including attribution qualifiers and dimensions.
Why this work appears in these filters
- motif / Dragon
- Artologium visual observation · Complete supplied photograph; authored visual observation · reviewed 2026-10-24
- repeat structure / Narrative scene
- Artologium visual observation · Complete supplied photograph; authored visual observation · reviewed 2026-10-24
- material / Paper
- Institution record · Object title, attribution, medium / technique and support fields; Description of the complete manuscript leaf, second paragraph. · reviewed 2026-10-24
- technique / Manuscript illumination
- Institution record · Object title, attribution, medium / technique and support fields; Description of the complete manuscript leaf, second paragraph. · reviewed 2026-10-24
Continue into the collection / Catalogue records & comparisons
Inspect the objects in the catalogue.
Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon (verso), from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025), known as the Great Mongol Shahnama
The Cleveland Museum of Art · 1943.658.b. Open the full work, museum attribution, material and dating.
Bahram Gur Arrives at the House of a Merchant (recto / verso)
The companion folio record from the same dispersed Great Mongol Shahnama in Cleveland’s collection.
Dragon in foliage with lion and phoenix heads
Compare the Ilkhanid Shahnama dragon with an Ottoman Saz-style brush drawing of a dragon coiled through foliage.
A different kind of connection
From models in a painted landscape to an inherited border on silk.