Muhammad Qasim Tabrizi

King Solomon of Israel is depicted on a throne in a luxuriant garden, surrounded by courtiers, angels, demons, animals and flowers. Around the central vignette is a richly illuminated frame, meticulously painted with interlacing vegetal patterns in deep blue, gold, and red, against a background of golden floral tracery inspired by Asian ceramic decoration. With its painstaking craftsmanship and minute detail, the ornamental frame demands as much attention as the image it surrounds.

This sumptuously decorated sheet was once the right half of the frontispiece of a fine Islamic manuscript. Just and wise, Solomon was a popular subject for title-page illustrations in Persian manuscripts.