Shīrīn Holding the Portrait of Khusraw while Being Watched by Shāpūr, folio from a manuscript of the Khamsa of Niẓāmī

This detached manuscript folio, or page, has an upper section containing four columns of text in Persian nasta‘līq script and a lower section with a miniature painting. The illumination, or manuscript painting depicts an episode from a famous 12th-century romantic story, in which the Armenian princess Shīrīn examines a portrait of the Sasanian king Khusraw while being watched by Shāpūr, a painter and friend of Khusraw

Shīrīn is seated on a carpet in a forest under an Oriental plane tree (Platanus orientalis) with multicolored autumn foliage. One of her attendants hands her a portrait of Khusraw painted by Shāpūr, who is partially concealed as he stands beside a tree in the lower left corner. At lower right are seated female musicians whose instruments include the bowed lute (kamānche) and a frame drum (dāyera zangī).