A DISCUSSION BETWEEN LEARNED MEN AND PRINCES

THE MINIATURE MUGHAL INDIA, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY, THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED 'IMAD AL-HASSANI, QAZVIN, DATED AH 1014/1605-06 AD

细节

A DISCUSSION BETWEEN LEARNED MEN AND PRINCES
THE MINIATURE MUGHAL INDIA, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY, THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED 'IMAD AL-HASSANI, QAZVIN, DATED AH 1014/1605-06 AD
Gouache heightened with gold on paper, two learned men sit on a terrace in discussion with two young princes who wear striped robes and gold patkas, an attendant in white robes studies an open book in the lower right hand corner, laid down on an album page between minor deep brown borders with gold and polychrome flowering vine on wide borders with a lattice of lotuses contained within leafy cartouches, the reverse with a nasta'liq quatrain signed and dated in a triangle below in clouds reserved against gold and polychrome floral illumination, the panel with smaller nasta'liq stating that it was done bi dar al-sultaneh Qazvin, laid down within minor navy borders with elegant gold lotus and leaf illumination on wide borders with similar floral lattice, later owner's stamp in lower margin
Miniature 9 1/8 x 6¾in. (22.8 x 16.8cm.); folio 17 1/8 x 11½in. (43.5 x 29cm.)

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The figure in the lower right hand corner of this miniature is very similar indeed to one in a painting ascribed to Govardhan in the Late Shah Jahan Album (Amina Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris, 1992, no.224, p.189).

Mir 'Imad al-Hassani, the calligrapher who completed the nasta'liq quatrain on the back of this album page, was born around the year AH 961/1553-4 AD in Qazwin, the capital of Safavid Iran. He moved to Tabriz where he was apprenticed to the master Muhammad Husayn Tabrizi, moving back to the capital on completion of his studies in AH 981/1573-4 AD. He became an itinerant craftsman, as was the custom among his profession, accepting commissions as he moved from one town to the next. Later in life he set out for the hajj and remained in the region for several years, working in Aleppo before returning to Iran in 1005/1596-7. His great rival as court calligrapher, 'Ali Reza-i Abassi, gradually replaced him in the Shah's favour and, in the increasingly extreme Shi'ite environment of the court of Shah 'Abbas, he was accused of Sufism and Sunnism. He was murdered in AH 1024/1615 AD by an agent of the Shah.