- Title
- Bearded Man Reading in a Landscape, Page from an Album
- Date Made
- dated AH 1045/ AD 1635
- Period
- Safavid (1501-1732)
- Medium
- Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- 5 9/16 x 7 13/16 in. (14.1 x 19.9 cm)
Frame: 20 × 15 × 1 1/2 in. (50.8 × 38.1 × 3.81 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.73.5.26
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
The style of painting that emerged in seventeenth-century Isfahan is closely associated with the artist Riza-yi ‘Abbasi (see M.73.5.471 and M.73.5.474). Under Riza’s influence, single-page drawings and paintings gained unprecedented recognition as independent artworks, valued for their inherent beauty, popular subject matter, and technical mastery rather than their narrative role within manuscripts. This style continued to be practiced after Riza’s death in 1635. Perhaps the best-known painter of this later generation is his pupil Mu‘in Musavvir, whose long life and career are documented in the unusually detailed captions he often inscribed on his pictures, including one in which he refers to Riza as his teacher.
This lightly tinted drawing depicts a man reclining near a tree in a grassy landscape, leaning upon a staff and reading a book. Pale color washes and contour lines of varying width create dimension. Inscriptions further enrich its historical context. On the left side of the depicted book, the artist humbly signs as “the misguided one, Mu‘in” and dates the work to AH 1045 (1635 CE). The right side of the book features a poetic verse borrowed from his master Riza’s repertoire: “With bare feet and head, love made me run to that alley like the young European boys.” A final inscription at the lower left edge of the drawing gives a more specific date: “panjshanba, the 25th of Rajab al-Murajjab. Mubarak bad/Thursday, January 5th [1636]. May it be blessed.”
2024
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. Islamic Art: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection. Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 1973.
- Taylor, Alice. Book Arts of Isfahan: Diversity and Identity in Seventeenth-Century Persia. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995.
