An illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Anwar-I Suhayli of Husayn Va'iz Kashifi (D.1504): the monkeys attack the bear, Persia, Shiraz, second quarter 16th Century

Kassapian, Paris, before 1959

Acquired by Philip Hofer from Kassapian, May 1959

Collection of Philip Hofer (1898-1984) and Frances Hofer, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1959-1976

P & D Colnaghi and Co. Ltd., London, 1976

David Becker, 1976

Stuart Cary Welch, received as a gift from David Becker in 1976

M. Fraser, Selected Works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, London, 2015, no.5, pp.24-25

Husayn Va'iz Kashifi (1436-1504/5) was a renowned Persian writer of the later Timurid period based in Herat under the patronage of Sultan Husayn Bayqara and his circle. His Anvar-i Suhayli, was a Persian version of the popular moral animal fables of Indian origin known as the Panchatantra, and in various translations as Kalila wa Dimna, Iyar-i Danish, Fables of Bidpai and the Turkish Humayun-nama (not to be confused with the Mughal memoir of Humayun's reign written by Gulbadan Begum). For information on Kashifi see Subtelny 2011.

The episode on this 16th century Safavid folio is from Story XI and concerns the tale of the monkeys and the bear: a bear who lived in a barren region travelled one day through a fertile country where a troop of monkeys lived. Desiring to have this abundant land for himself, he attacked the monkeys, who fought back with gusto and drove the chastened bear away. Outraged at his defeat, the bear returned to his barren mountain and gathered an army of fellow-bears, who descended on the monkeys and expelled them from their land. Subsequently the king of the monkeys returned from a long hunting trip to find his homeland occupied by the bears. Taking the advice of his vizier, he lured the bears in a scorching desert, where they perished in the arid heat. The monkeys then returned to their fertile lands.

The illustration shows the first part of the episode, where the monkeys mount a counter-attack on the solitary bear. The text above and below the miniature translates as follows:

“Before I from the bowl of gladness one short draught of joy could sip,

Cruel fate dashed down the goblet ere it yet had reached my lip.

In short, the bear escaped with the greatest trouble from the monkeys, and having conveyed himself to the mountains, raised loud cries and a vast uproar. A great number of his species came round him, and seeing him in that state, asked him as to the circumstances of the battle and the manner of the contumely and blows inflicted upon him. The bear recounted the affair as it happened, and said, ‘Bravo, dishonour! That a powerful-framed bear should endure this disgrace from feeble monkeys! Never in bygone days did such a thing befall our ancestors and progenitors, and until the day of resurrection, this infamy will adhere to our race. Our advisable course is that we should join together, and by one united night-attack, change the day of existence for them into the night of extinction.” (Transl. Eastwick 1854).