Oakland, CA-December 17, 2007. Eleanor Sims, a noted Islamic art historian, will present a free public lecture entitled "The Windsor Shahnama of 1648: An Illustrated Persian Manuscript Offered to Queen Victoria by an Afghan Prince in 1839" at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on February 14, 2008 at 7 pm. The lecture will be held in Samsung Hall and is included with the museum's admission.

Co-author of the recently released book: The Windsor Shahnama of 1648, Sims will discuss the artistic and cultural context of this 17th-century manuscript and comment on its continuing significance: "Everything that Iranians know about their past is discussed in the Shahnama," says Sims.

The Shahnama or Book of Kings, written by the Persian poet Firdawsi at the turn of the eleventh century, is an epic poem that chronicles the history of pre Islamic Iran from its earliest, mythical past up to the Muslim conquest in the middle of the 7th century AD. Its fundamental importance for Iranians is reflected in the thousands of copies made since its composition. This Windsor Castle Shahnama is one of the largest of all surviving illustrated copies and counts among the treasures of the Royal Library at Windsor, in England.

"Its size, its still-pristine condition, and the lavish use of gold and silver pigment in pictures and the surrounding illumination all accord it a majestic quality unique among contemporary illustrated manuscripts," Sims has written.

This copy was made in 1648 for Qarajaghay Khan, a 17th-century governor of Mashhad, the holiest city in Iran. The manuscript came to England in 1839 as a gift to Queen Victoria from Prince Kamran Shah, Afghan ruler of the city of Herat, as a gesture of gratitude for the British government's assistance when his city was under siege.

The book's impressive size, 18 inches by 11 inches, contains more than 750 folios or 1,500 pages, each decorated in varying shades of gold. Tales of heroic courage and valor, love and betrayal, are richly illustrated in its 148 paintings.

"The unified scale of the paintings and their traditional style and palette, enhanced by the precious illumination on almost every page, lend a remarkable visual cohesion to this manuscript," Sims writes.

Also unique to the Windsor manuscript are its evocations of 17th-century architecture, including the reception halls, pavilions, and many other public buildings in Isfahan, one of Iran's most historic cities.

Sims graduated from Mills College in 1964 and received a PhD in Islamic art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She has worked in the Islamic Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and is currently the co-editor of Islamic Art, a scholarly journal focused on the material culture of the Muslim world. Her previous books include Peerless Images in Persian Painting, published in 2002. The Windsor Shahnama of 1648 was written with the late B.W. Robinson and published by Paul Holberton Publishing.

Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, on 135 lush acres, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college Offering innovative degree programs to approximately 900 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men. Ranked one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report and one of the Best 366 Colleges by the Princeton Review, Mills provides a dynamic liberal arts education fostering women's leadership, social responsibility, and creativity.

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