ATTRIBUTABLE TO MU'IN MUSAVVIR, SAFAVID ISFAHAN, CIRCA 1670

The facial features of the figures in the painting, as well as the meticulous attention to detail and strong colours are all characteristic of the artist Mu’in Musavvir. Mu'in, who worked between 1635 and 1697, was the prolific student of Reza 'Abbasi, and an artist who brought the single page composition as a genre of Persian painting into its maturity. A section of what is probably the original volume from which this painting comes is in the British Library (Or.3248, Norah M. Titley, Persian Miniature Painting, London, 1983, pl.19, p.119). Four of the paintings there bear the minute signature of Mu'in Musavvir in the margin below the paintings. In her discussion of that manuscript Titley describes Mu'in's fondness of pinkish-mauve, a dominant colour in our painting. Another painting from the same manuscript is in a private collection (published Abolala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts. Selections form the Art and History Trust Collection, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1992, fig.49, p.290).

A Shahnama illustrated by Mu'in contains a number of miniatures which follow in a similar style to our painting, with the same bold colouring and attention to detail. One of these is published in Sheila R. Canby, Persian Painting, London, 1993, pl. 73, p. 109, and another, in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, is published in Massumeh Farhad, 'The art of Mu'in Musavvir: A Mirror of his Times' in Sheila Canby (ed.), Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting, Marg 1990, pl.1, p.115. Another Shahnama illustrated by him sold at Christie's, New York, The History of the Book: The Cornelius J. Hauck Collection, 27-28 June 2006, lot 62.