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Lot Essay
Stylistically this fine miniature relates closely to one in the Edwin Binney 3rd Collection and another that sold at Sotheby's, 13 October 1989, lot 57. So similar are the three that it seems likely that they are in the hand of the same artist, or at least by two artists familiar with each other's work (Edwin Binney 3rd, Turkish Miniature Paintings and Manuscripts from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1973, no.14, pp.52-53). In all three works the ladies wear long dark fur lined coats and hold in their hands large roses in full bloom with dark shaded leaves. The foliage behind the ladies are similarly drawn with flowering prunus blossoms.
The Binney miniature was previously in the collections of F.R.Martin, Sevadjian and Jean Pozzi. When first published by Martin, he saw it as Timurid, mid 15th century and attributed it to the painter 'Véli-Djan' (F.R. Martin, The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century, vol. I, London, 1912, fig.19, p.32). Stchoukine, in La Peinture turque wrote that Vali Jan, whilst originally from Tabriz and a student of the Safavid master Siyavush Beg, was transferred to the Imperial ateliers in Constantinople (Ivan Stchoukine, La Peinture turque, vol.I, Paris, 1966, p.34). Meredith-Owens also talks of Vali Jan, mentioning that he produced slightly coloured drawings of huris, or maidens of the Islamic paradise (G.M. Meredith-Owens, Turkish Miniatures, London, 1963, p.20).
The Binney miniature was previously in the collections of F.R.Martin, Sevadjian and Jean Pozzi. When first published by Martin, he saw it as Timurid, mid 15th century and attributed it to the painter 'Véli-Djan' (F.R. Martin, The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century, vol. I, London, 1912, fig.19, p.32). Stchoukine, in La Peinture turque wrote that Vali Jan, whilst originally from Tabriz and a student of the Safavid master Siyavush Beg, was transferred to the Imperial ateliers in Constantinople (Ivan Stchoukine, La Peinture turque, vol.I, Paris, 1966, p.34). Meredith-Owens also talks of Vali Jan, mentioning that he produced slightly coloured drawings of huris, or maidens of the Islamic paradise (G.M. Meredith-Owens, Turkish Miniatures, London, 1963, p.20).