The Secret Council of the Prophet Sulayman

On a golden throne, wrapped in a shroud of golden clouds, sit two. The face of Sulayman, like the faces of all prophets in this pictorial tradition, is hidden by a white veil — no mortal is granted to see the features of the one who converses with God, and only the flame above his head bears witness to this conversation. Beside him is Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba: not a guest at the throne but an equal in the union of power and of that wisdom which comes not through law but through the insight of the heart. At the foot of the throne the hoopoe has come to rest — that very messenger of the legend whose tiding has already been fulfilled; the path is traversed, and so he is not in flight but at peace, a friend whose service is done. In the prophet's hand is a pomegranate, still untouched, still sealed: wisdom awaiting its hour, unlike the bird, which has already gone its path to the end. Before the throne the whole underside of the world has frozen in submission. Composite beasts — an alloy of claw, scale and horn — bear upon them a blue div who has tamed them by will alone; a little apart, behind the wise Asaf, the petrified horned divs have crowded together in silence — chaos no longer acting but only remembering itself. By the brook beneath the hills plods a winged spotted guard with a golden collar and a tail ending in a serpent's head — a creature not of this world, turned by the prophet into a keeper of the peace. And only at the very foot of the sheet, where the throne's gaze ends, a lion overtakes a doe: the law of matter, still alive and not abolished by the spirit. In the distance, through the golden haze of the heavens, the silhouettes of a city with domes and minarets emerge — an echo of ancient Bukhara. Two years went into painting out every feather, every curl of flame and cloud in this silent council. About the work The miniature belongs to the tradition of the court painting of Maverannahr of the 16th–17th centuries, where the subject of Sulayman and his power over the invisible world was one of the favourite ways of speaking about just rule and the subjection of chaos to the prophet's will. The restrained monochrome palette — the nim-qalam technique, ink and ochre tints with golden accents — heightens the sense of a sacred timelessness, beyond the bustle of the day. The margins of the sheet are adorned with the same fine drawing in ink and gold: among branching trees a simurgh soars, and below, beasts dwell peaceably side by side that within the body of the miniature itself have not yet been reconciled with one another. The miniature was created by the master Davlat Toshev, whose brush continues the line of the masters for whom painting was a form of silent prayer. Details Base: Natural handmade Bukhara silk paper (90% silk, 10% cotton) Technique: Tempera, watercolour, natural plant and mineral pigments, gold leaf (23 carat) Unique piece