ATTRIBUTED TO SHAH QULI, OTTOMAN TURKEY, QAZVIN STYLE, MID 16TH CENTURY

Persian artists who went to work in the Ottoman ateliers occasionally imposed their style, completely intact, on paintings. The treatment of the clothing of our peri, particularly the collar, is typical of Shah Quli, one such artist. Another drawing of a peri by the artist is published in Yanni Petsopoulos (ed.), Tulips, Arabesques and Turbans, London, 1982, no.190, p.197. Other Turkish drawings of peris in Persian style include an example in the Keir Collection (B.W. Robinson (ed.), Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book, London 1976, no.III.347, pl.79, p.202); one in the Edwin Binney III Collection (Edwin Binney III, Turkish Treasures from the Collection of Edwin Binney III, Portland, 1979, pp.76-77, no.47); two in the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi (H.2162, fol.9a and 8b; Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, Washington, 1987, nos.48a and b,p.103) and a page formerly in the collection of Vera Amhest Hale Pratt (Petsopoulos, op.cit., pl.196, p.197). The Hale Pratt painting, as well as an example sold in these Rooms, 27 April 1995, lot 75, like ours bear an attribution to the artist Behzad. So similar is the Christie’s 1995 example, which was also attributed to Shah Quli, that the two must be in the hand of the same artist.

A similar peri recently sold at Sotheby’s, 24 April 2014, lot 97.