The Ascent of the Prophet to Heaven, Page from the Khamsa of Nizami

Islamic · Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), c. 1600

Medium

Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper

Original size

Image: 26.7 × 18.4 cm (10 1/2 × 7 1/4 in.); Paper: 35.4 × 24 cm (14 × 9 7/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

This luminous manuscript page depicts one of Islamic art's most celebrated subjects — the Prophet's miraculous night journey through the heavens — rendered with the extraordinary refinement that defined Safavid court painting at its peak. Produced in Persia around 1600, the work belongs to an illustrated copy of the Khamsa, a collection of five epic poems by the twelfth-century poet Nizami. Safavid artists elevated manuscript illumination to a court art form, layering opaque watercolor with burnished gold to achieve a jewel-like intensity that no photographic reproduction fully conveys. The figures, foliage, and celestial forms are built up with meticulous brushwork on a scale that rewards close examination. The Mi'raj — the Prophet's ascent — was among the most technically ambitious subjects a Safavid illuminator could undertake, requiring the artist to suggest divine light and celestial movement within the tight confines of a manuscript page. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this page as one of its significant examples of Persian court painting. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates this intricate work onto canvas with careful attention to its layered color, gilded detail, and the otherworldly glow that has made this page one of the enduring images of the Safavid tradition.