A Study of an Illustrated Manuscript of the "Nameh-ye Khosravan" and Its Reflection in the Qajar Visual Arts

Nameh-ye_Khosravan is a work of Jalal al-Din Mirza, Son of Fath Ali Shah Qajar, Which was written during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. In accordance to this era’s way of thinking, the illustrated manuscript of the Nameh-ye Khosravan is characteristically written in Persian script, the Arabic words and vocabularies are removed from it and the kings of the pre-Islamic era of Iran are illustrated with regard to the Shahnameh stories. This manuscript, several decades after its writing, is considered as one of the examples which indicates the archaistic policies in the Qajar era. Therefore this paper studies the manuscript and its illustrations along with the reflection of these illustrations in the visual arts of the Qajar period. This paper aims at answering the following questions: What are the characteristics of the illustrated manuscript of the Nameh-ye Khosravan? In which type of the visual arts of the Qajar period are the mentioned illustrations reflected? The research method is descriptive- analytical, along with the explanation of the data (the illustrations) and their comparison. The data were collected from library sources and field research by means of documentary sources, note taking and selected illustrations. The results indicate that the visual instances in the mentioned manuscript were influential as models for much of the artworks of this period including architectural ornamentations, paintings, carvings, etc.