A KNEELING YOUTH HOLDING A CUP
A KNEELING YOUTH HOLDING A CUP
A KNEELING YOUTH HOLDING A CUP
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A KNEELING YOUTH HOLDING A CUP

SAFAVID IRAN, CIRCA 1600

Details
A KNEELING YOUTH HOLDING A CUP
SAFAVID IRAN, CIRCA 1600
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, laid down between gold and black rules, within inner borders with twelve panels of poetic verse in black nasta'liq and outer black border with gold split palmettes and gold and polychrome rules on buff margin with gold arabesques, pasted on card and the reverse with inscriptions in pencil
Painting 6 1/2 x 3 3/4in. (16.5 x 9.5cm.); folio 13 1/2 x 9in. (34.3 x 23cm.)
Provenance
Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, de-accessioned,
Anon sale, Sotheby's, London, 15th April 1985, lot 15.
Literature
Pratapaditya Pal (ed.), Islamic Art. The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection. Gift of Joan Palevsky, Los Angeles, 1973, no.227, pp.133-34.

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Lot Essay

Single-page portraits of this type were very much in vogue in Isfahan in the late 16th century. As the city became more prosperous towards the end of the century, so a new class of subjects emerged, young dandies – elegantly clad, like ours, and often seemingly idle. These beautiful young men and women were typical subjects for the artists that quickly became most associated with the genre, such as Sadiqi Beg (1533-ca.1612) and Reza ‘Abbasi (ca.1560s-1635). The wonderfully large turban worn by our youth is similar in style to that found on a painting by Reza ‘Abbasi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of a Man in a Fur-Lined Coat (acc.no.55.121.39) and its companion piece a painting of a Barefoot Youth (in the Art and History Trust, Houston, published in Sheila Canby, The Rebellious Reformer. The Drawings and Paintings of Rizy-yi ‘Abbasi of Isfahan, London, 1996, no.35). Another painting of a youth with a similarly large turban, also by Reza ‘Abbasi, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv.L.6964).

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