Khusraw Watching Shirin Bathing
Folio from Khamsa of Nizami

The Khamsah of Nizami is a popular manuscript of poetry originally written by Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209), a masterful Persian poet known for his epics. The Khamsah is a series of five narrative poems that recount the lives of historical figures and romantic tales, which served as a popular subject for manuscript illustration and attests to the rich history of figural illustration and the arts of the book. The scene derives from the popular tale of two lovers – Khusraw (a Sassanian king) and Shirin (an Armenian princess). In this famous scene, Khusraw watches Shirin bathe in the foreground. She is in a stream surrounded by flowers next to a cypress tree and a blossoming tree, and her black horse stands to the left.