06 Oct Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan (Shiraz, 1411)

Posted at 19:35h in Persian Art by

One of the operations carried out with a celestial globe was that of casting a horoscope. Astrologers were widely respected in Iran, not least at royal courts, and the birth of royal princes was a particular focus for their prognostications.

This exceptionally grand copy of his own horoscope was commissioned by Iskandar Sultan, a grandson of the great Central Asian warlord Timur (d. 1405), while he was governor of Shiraz. The double-page painting represents the position of the heavens on the day he was born -25 April 1384.

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Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision : Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century (Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles 1989) no. 36

John Curtis, Ina Sarikhani Sandmann and Tim Stanley, 2021. Epic Iran, 5000 Years of Culture, V&A Publishing, (pp. 172-173).