In this article
A fire burns below a seated king. Around it, courtiers share food and drink while animals gather at the foot of the scene. Above them, coloured rocks rise into the gold-speckled margin. The Feast of Sada turns the discovery of fire into a gathering that fills almost an entire landscape.
Painted in Tabriz around 1525 and attributed to Sultan Muhammad, this is a page from the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp. The Shahnama, or Book of Kings, tells the story behind the feast. The painting gives that story a particular setting: a court outdoors, with people and animals sharing the same ground. [1][5]
Find the fire
Begin just below the king. The red and gold flames are small enough to miss when you first look at the whole page. Follow their position back to the seated figure above them, then out towards the groups on either side. The celebration spreads around the fire rather than obscuring it. [1][5]
The king is Hushang. In the story, he throws a stone at a frightening creature. It strikes a rock and produces sparks. Hushang recognises fire as a divine gift and calls a feast to celebrate its discovery. The painting shows the celebratory feast. [1][3][5]
A king among his guests
Hushang sits on a patterned carpet near the centre. A courtier beside him offers a pomegranate. The Met's catalogue entry identifies wine in the king's cup and another figure drinking wine at the left. Follow these small actions through the gathering, from the offered fruit to the raised cups. [1][5]
Look down towards the animals. They occupy the foreground beneath the human company. The Met's teaching resource connects their presence with the legend that Hushang first domesticated animals. Their inclusion gives the feast a wider cast than the courtiers alone. [5]
Rocks that escape the frame
Follow the rocks upwards. The painted landscape passes beyond the rectangular border and enters the page's outer margin. Trees extend with it. The frame contains the court, but it does not contain every part of the landscape.
Stuart Cary Welch describes concealed beings in Sultan Muhammad's rocky landscape. [3] Compare the rocks with the more readily recognised animals below: where does a shape become a face or a creature, and where does it remain a rock?
Painting and poem on one sheet
Zoom back out to the whole folio. Text panels sit below the painted scene, with another panel near its upper right. The image is part of a manuscript page, not a painting made on a separate canvas. [1]
The Met distinguishes the dimensions of the painting, 24.1 by 23 centimetres, from those of the page, 47 by 31.8 centimetres. The broader sheet gives the image room to meet the writing and the decorated margin. Its catalogue number is 1970.301.2, and the folio is numbered 22v. [1]
The poet Firdausi is the author of the Shahnama. Sultan Muhammad is the painter to whom this illustration is attributed. Those are different roles in the making of the object. [1][2]
A royal workshop
The manuscript was made in the Safavid court's workshop in Tabriz. Its production brought painters together with calligraphers, illuminators and binders. The completed book contained 258 illustrations. Francesca Leoni describes a project carried out over many years, with different painters contributing to its pages. [2][5]
The Met's account of manuscript making explains how scribes wrote into spaces established by the page's layout before the painters worked on the illustrations. [5] Looking at this folio, the relationship between the writing and the painted scene becomes part of what there is to explore.
What is Sada?
Sada, also written Sadeh, is an Iranian winter festival associated with lighting fires. Anna Krasnowolska's account in Encyclopaedia Iranica traces different explanations of its origins and records celebrations across several centuries. The story of Hushang's discovery of fire is one of those traditions. [3][4][5]
The painting selects a feast from that story. Its fire is surrounded by a royal gathering, while the animals and rising rocks give the celebration a setting far beyond the carpet on which the king sits. Return to the whole page and follow the route from the fire to the highest rocks. [1][5]
Common questions
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Who painted The Feast of Sada?
The painting is attributed to Sultan Muhammad. Firdausi is the author of the Shahnama, the poem illustrated by the manuscript. [1]
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When and where was it made?
The Met dates the folio to around 1525 and places its production in Tabriz, Iran. [1]
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Where is the page held?
It belongs to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which records it as 1970.301.2. [1]