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Lot Essay
This scene is an exotic and deeply alluring celebration of spring. Its superb blend of fantasy, naturalism and lyricism give it an enchanted, other-worldly character.
Composed with a careful attention to natural detail, the focal point is a blossoming prunus and a rose bush coming into flower, their stems crossing carefully behind the nightingale The buds of the prunus are marked with a delicate purple fish-scale, and the rose stem is dotted with fine thorns. Rosebuds, not yet fully open, curl inward with a sculptural elegance, reminiscent of the spiral heart of a seashell. Surrounding these central plants, a variety of other flowers add depth and liveliness to the composition. A purple iris stands out prominently, while a low-growing shrub blooms in the foreground beside a stream, its form echoing the gentle incline of the nearby hillside. Between two birds, the curling tendrils of a vine bearing pink flowers climbs up the prunus branch, adding a sense of vertical movement. The space around the flowers is animated with nightingales with finely rendered plumage and insects and butterflies with thread-like legs and antennae. Behind the verdant bank, a second, more arid meadow appears, where smaller flowers grow and petals are seen falling from the rose bush. Canby writes that the suggestion of spring is reinforced here – "even the desert is in bloom" (Canby 1998, p.157).
In the 16th and 17th centuries, European prints and herbals often provided the inspiration for floral studies of this type, which were popular in both Iran and India. The artist responsible for this joyous work was no doubt familiar with these European prints. He clearly borrowed lightly from them, for instance in the insects and the depiction of the multiple stages of the rose blooming, or in the soft stippled effect that adds texture to the grassy ground and the way that the undersides of the leaves are done in a lighter colour. But he uses these elements in a landscape that is entirely his own – “less decorative than the Safavid, less naturalistic than the Mughal, less factual and less moralizing than the Dutch” (Welch 1982, p.227).
The work also has similarity with that of Safavid painters, such as Shafi’ Abbasi (ca.1628-1674), for whom the theme of the gul-o-bulbul, or rose and nightingale, was a popular one. Full of symbolism, in Persian poetry, the plain-looking nightingale is a metaphor for the unrequited lover. He never ceases singing his love for the rose, a metaphor for youthfulness and beauty who responds with silence. In the 17th century, Golconda sustained strong cultural ties with Safavid Iran and there was a appetite there for undiluted Persian taste. However there was also a constant movement of artists in both directions between the two countries in this period which meant that an innovation or style prevalent in one country would quickly transmit to the other.
When first published by Toby Falk, our painting was attributed to a Persian artist working in Golconda. Welch and Welch also attributed the painting to Golconda but in his catalogue Art of the Persian Courts, Abolala Soudavar linked the painting to the enigmatic 17th century Safavid artist Bahram Sofrekesh – largely on the basis of a similar prunus blossom in a painting by the artist in the Art and History Trust Collection (Soudavar 1992, p.366). Whilst there is a visual connection, and indeed Sofrekesh’s works betray an Indian taste, as Sheila Canby has since argued, the painting has "an amplitude and warmth that do not appear in the work of the Safavid artist. Such qualities do characterise…mid-17th century Golconda paintings, through the light bright green of the ground and the precise draughtsmanship of the flowers, birds and insects" (Canby 1998, p.158).
In many ways our painting is astonishingly naturalistic, but the scene also verges on the hyperreal, as so much Deccani work of the 17th century does. Part of this sense of hyperreality is achieved by a complete disregard for the convention of scale – with butterflies the size of nightingales and roses that tower over them. Whilst the artist has meticulously observed so much of nature’s beauty, he creates a sense of unreality by mixing the various elements with no regard for the proportions of nature. Another of the compelling Deccani features of our painting is the verdant green ground which recalls that upon which our Prince Hawking (lot 28) is set. It also bears some similarity to the ground of a painting of an African Courtier, painted in Golconda in the third quarter of the 17th century (in a private collection; published in Haidar and Sardar 2015, no.129, p.237).
A painting that helps to reinforce the attribution to Golconda, is the opening folio of an album prepared there for the Dutch market, circa 1645 (the date it is recorded as entering a Deccani library), and now in the Khalili Collection (Leach 1998, no.66, pp.228-9). Cleanly drawn with decisive strokes, it depicts a cluster of violets. Both our painting and the Khalili example incorporate varied influences from Europe and Iran, but is distinctive and more naturally ornamental.
Another closely comparable painting to ours was identified by Toby Falk – a smaller Deccani flower study in the Royal Library, Windsor, which he had believed to be the work of the same hand. It is simply signed ‘Amin’ and is dated AH 1069⁄1658-9 AD (Album A 13, f.50b). Whilst there is some similarity, for instance in bird and in the butterflies that circle above the bloom, it lacks the intensity, animation and complexity of our scene.
Composed with a careful attention to natural detail, the focal point is a blossoming prunus and a rose bush coming into flower, their stems crossing carefully behind the nightingale The buds of the prunus are marked with a delicate purple fish-scale, and the rose stem is dotted with fine thorns. Rosebuds, not yet fully open, curl inward with a sculptural elegance, reminiscent of the spiral heart of a seashell. Surrounding these central plants, a variety of other flowers add depth and liveliness to the composition. A purple iris stands out prominently, while a low-growing shrub blooms in the foreground beside a stream, its form echoing the gentle incline of the nearby hillside. Between two birds, the curling tendrils of a vine bearing pink flowers climbs up the prunus branch, adding a sense of vertical movement. The space around the flowers is animated with nightingales with finely rendered plumage and insects and butterflies with thread-like legs and antennae. Behind the verdant bank, a second, more arid meadow appears, where smaller flowers grow and petals are seen falling from the rose bush. Canby writes that the suggestion of spring is reinforced here – "even the desert is in bloom" (Canby 1998, p.157).
In the 16th and 17th centuries, European prints and herbals often provided the inspiration for floral studies of this type, which were popular in both Iran and India. The artist responsible for this joyous work was no doubt familiar with these European prints. He clearly borrowed lightly from them, for instance in the insects and the depiction of the multiple stages of the rose blooming, or in the soft stippled effect that adds texture to the grassy ground and the way that the undersides of the leaves are done in a lighter colour. But he uses these elements in a landscape that is entirely his own – “less decorative than the Safavid, less naturalistic than the Mughal, less factual and less moralizing than the Dutch” (Welch 1982, p.227).
The work also has similarity with that of Safavid painters, such as Shafi’ Abbasi (ca.1628-1674), for whom the theme of the gul-o-bulbul, or rose and nightingale, was a popular one. Full of symbolism, in Persian poetry, the plain-looking nightingale is a metaphor for the unrequited lover. He never ceases singing his love for the rose, a metaphor for youthfulness and beauty who responds with silence. In the 17th century, Golconda sustained strong cultural ties with Safavid Iran and there was a appetite there for undiluted Persian taste. However there was also a constant movement of artists in both directions between the two countries in this period which meant that an innovation or style prevalent in one country would quickly transmit to the other.
When first published by Toby Falk, our painting was attributed to a Persian artist working in Golconda. Welch and Welch also attributed the painting to Golconda but in his catalogue Art of the Persian Courts, Abolala Soudavar linked the painting to the enigmatic 17th century Safavid artist Bahram Sofrekesh – largely on the basis of a similar prunus blossom in a painting by the artist in the Art and History Trust Collection (Soudavar 1992, p.366). Whilst there is a visual connection, and indeed Sofrekesh’s works betray an Indian taste, as Sheila Canby has since argued, the painting has "an amplitude and warmth that do not appear in the work of the Safavid artist. Such qualities do characterise…mid-17th century Golconda paintings, through the light bright green of the ground and the precise draughtsmanship of the flowers, birds and insects" (Canby 1998, p.158).
In many ways our painting is astonishingly naturalistic, but the scene also verges on the hyperreal, as so much Deccani work of the 17th century does. Part of this sense of hyperreality is achieved by a complete disregard for the convention of scale – with butterflies the size of nightingales and roses that tower over them. Whilst the artist has meticulously observed so much of nature’s beauty, he creates a sense of unreality by mixing the various elements with no regard for the proportions of nature. Another of the compelling Deccani features of our painting is the verdant green ground which recalls that upon which our Prince Hawking (lot 28) is set. It also bears some similarity to the ground of a painting of an African Courtier, painted in Golconda in the third quarter of the 17th century (in a private collection; published in Haidar and Sardar 2015, no.129, p.237).
A painting that helps to reinforce the attribution to Golconda, is the opening folio of an album prepared there for the Dutch market, circa 1645 (the date it is recorded as entering a Deccani library), and now in the Khalili Collection (Leach 1998, no.66, pp.228-9). Cleanly drawn with decisive strokes, it depicts a cluster of violets. Both our painting and the Khalili example incorporate varied influences from Europe and Iran, but is distinctive and more naturally ornamental.
Another closely comparable painting to ours was identified by Toby Falk – a smaller Deccani flower study in the Royal Library, Windsor, which he had believed to be the work of the same hand. It is simply signed ‘Amin’ and is dated AH 1069⁄1658-9 AD (Album A 13, f.50b). Whilst there is some similarity, for instance in bird and in the butterflies that circle above the bloom, it lacks the intensity, animation and complexity of our scene.