拍品專文
With the floral decoration that emerges from the lower edges in a series of separate sprays and against a dark ground, the work on this penbox carries much the same aesthetic to the works of the Safavid masters. A similar decorative scheme with comparable layout, colours and choice of motifs, although on a book cover, is found in an example in the Khalili Collection (Nasser D. Khalili, B.W. Robinson and Tim Stanley, Lacquer of the Islamic Lands, London, 1996, no. 61, pp.94-95). Other comparables can also be seen in the Khalili Collection, nos. 58-60 (Khalili et al., op. cit., pp. 92-93). The European landscape of the interior harks back to the style of the 17th century and the work in particular of the school of Muhammad Zaman (fl.1659-1700). By the later 17th century, the Iranian miniature painting style had been reformed into an 'illusionistic painting heavily dependent on European prototypes' (Khalili et al., op. cit., p. 54). The broken tree trunk that appears in the left foreground of both this penbox and one in the Khalili collection, which is signed 'Hajji Muhammad', probably a reference to Muhammad Zaman, has come to be identified as characteristic of his work (Khalili et al., op. cit., p. 56).