Isfandiyar slays the horned wolves (kargs), folio from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) of Firdausi.
The scene shows one of the seven heroic feats, or Trials, undertaken over seven days by prince Isfandiyar. For his first Trial, Isfandiyar charges his horse at two horned wolves (kargs, sometimes translated as rhinoceros), shooting them with arrows.
Detached folio fragment, ink, pigments and gold on paper, cut down and mounted onto card, Persian text with painting, probably Tabriz, Iran, c. 1300.
This folio is from a dispersed manuscript known to scholars as the "First Small Shahnama", of which seventy-seven folios are now in the Chester Beatty. The "Small Shahnama" manuscripts are the earliest known illustrated examples of the Book of Kings (Shahnama), the epic Persian poem composed c. 1010 by Firdausi. Two manuscripts are dispersed, and a third is in the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC. Of small format, these three manuscripts are undated, but usually attributed to c. 1300 on stylistic grounds. Details of iconography confirm that production was after the Mongol invasions of Iran and Iraq, and the establishment of Ilkhanid rule in 1258.