The Choice Is Yours

This work was created as an illumination, rather than as a scene. A cream-coloured triangle rises from the centre of the painting, and along its edges runs a line of cuneiform, the script of the Achaemenid inscriptions, preserved here as rhythm rather than as a message to be read. It carries the meaning of the three principles of humanity: good thoughts, good deeds and good words.

Where the triangle gathers, a deep red medallion opens onto an oval of pale grey. Inside it a hand is raised, open and partly dissolved in light. It is the only part of the painting without a pattern, and the only part unsure of its own edges.

Around that centre, the panel is arranged in the way a carpet is arranged: boteh motifs in the four quarters, black spandrels in the corners and a flowered border covering the whole panel. Turquoise, lapis and gold carry the hierarchy, as colour does in Persian illumination — they mark rank, not mood.

This state runs throughout the collection. Here the painting is given a distinct feeling: an open hand, raised, within a triangle of light.