IRAN Four Persian miniatures from a Haft Peykar. Polychrome pigments and gold on paper. First half of the 16th century. Sight: 25,5 X 11,5 cm. These miniatures depicting majestic pavilions are illustrations of a Haft Peykar, the fifth poem of the Khamseh, a famous Nizami poetic collection written in the 12th century. The Haft Peykar (The Seven Portraits or The Seven Beauties) is the romantic biography of the Sassanid ruler Bahram Gur. Legend has it that the king married seven princesses whose ideal beauty symbolized the seven heavens. He had sumptuous pavilions of seven different colors built for each of them, and every day of the week he would visit one of his wives, dressed in the color of her pavilion. On our four pages, Bahram Gur is shown with a princess in the black, red, blue and sandalwood pavilions. The four pages represent a similar composition based on harmonious symmetry. The scenes are organized around a central axis, delimited by a dome in the upper part, surmounting successively in the center of the pages an arcade, then the main characters in front of a bay, and in the lower part a central basin. The style of these four miniatures is distinguished by an extreme finesse in the multiple details: from the complexity of the radiating architectural decorations, to the delicacy of the floral motifs on the textiles (carpets and clothes), to the swirls of water in the basins where fine ripples are drawn. A miniature of similar composition dated between 1525 and 1550 is now in the Minneapolis Institute of Aty (Acc. N°51.37.36a-c). It depicts Bahram Gur in the black pavilion, and is characterized by a similar treatment of architectural decoration and fine detail.