Sultan Ali Mirza(likely), court scene

Sultan Ali Mirza (likely), court scene Court of Sultan Ali Mirza (likely), frontispiece Or 6810. "The principal figure is not more grandly dressed than his retinue. His cross-legged posture resembles that of Shaybani Khan in a portrait attributed to Bihzad, but it is not seen in portraits or proxy portraits of Sultan Husayn. His robe is buff-coloured, and his only adornment is a ring on his left little finger. His round face appears rubbed, but in its concentrated gaze it may have had a trace of portraiture; there is perhaps a resemblance to pictures of Baysunghur ca.1420-30. It would seem that the frontispiece, and especially the portrayed letter, should help us to identify the man for whom the manuscript was made and to understand the puzzling shamsah mentioned earlier. In a monograph of 1926, F.R. Martin tells us that the letter in the frontispiece was read by Sir Thomas Arnold as containing the name Sultan Ali Mirza Barlas, but a precise transcription is not given. The writers identify him as a descendant of Timur's son Miranshah; his father Sultan Mahmud Mirza Barlas, ruler of Samarqand, died in 900 Rabi II/January 1495; Sultan 'Ali was himself to rule that city for brief peri