Sultan Muhammad (attributed)

Sultan Muhammad, also spelled Sultan Mohammad, was a sixteenth-century Iranian painter at the Safavid court in Tabriz. He was born in Tabriz, was active from about 1505 to about 1550, and died in Tabriz.

He served two Safavid rulers, Shah Ismail I and Shah Tahmasp I. Under Shah Ismail he directed the workshop of the court’s artists, and he gave painting lessons to Tahmasp while Tahmasp was still crown prince. He worked as a painter and an illustrator and is known as a Persian miniaturist.

Sultan Muhammad was the first director of the project that produced the illustrated Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp. Works associated with him are now held by several collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Aga Khan Museum, the British Museum, the David Collection, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Harvard Art Museums.

The painting shown here, “The Feast of Sada,” is folio 22v from that Shahnama. It was made about 1525 in Tabriz, the city where he was born and died, and the Met attributes it to Sultan Muhammad. It is painted in opaque watercolor, ink, silver and gold on paper, and the scene includes Hushang, men, fire, deer and goats.

The painting is 9 1/2 inches high and 9 1/16 inches wide (24.1 by 23 centimeters), on a page of 18 1/2 by 12 1/2 inches (47 by 31.8 centimeters). Arthur A. Houghton Jr. gave the folio to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1970, and it is part of the museum’s Islamic Art department.