During the late sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century in Iran, the increased popularity of paintings independent of text but intended for placement in albums gave rise to new artistic developments in which portraiture was paramount. More generic representations than exacting likenesses, such portraits depicted not only sophisticated and refined courtly figures but a variety of other types as well, including mendicants, soldiers, foreigners, and peasants. By the mid-seventeenth century, translucent washes of color applied over drawings, emphasizing bold calligraphic lines, had replaced the rich opaque colors previously favored. This charming tinted drawing, likely a folio detached from an album, is inscribed with the name Riza-yi ‘Abbasi, the preeminent painter of his day, and dated 4th of Safar AH 1044 (July 11, 1634 CE).
Although many paintings and drawings are inscribed with Riza’s name, not all are by the hand of the master. Some may be entirely or partially the work of a student. Such may be the case with this drawing, which was perhaps begun by Riza but completed by his son and student, Shafi, to whom he inscribed the work. The fur lining of the man’s coat lacks the fine, downy texture (produced by hundreds of tiny brushstrokes) that characterizes Riza’s undisputed works. Nonetheless, the eccentric subject matter (a well-dressed man carrying a gardener’s tool), the emphasis on line over color, and the accentuation of the figure’s curved contours to impart a sense of movement are all features of Riza’s manner, which took hold in seventeenth-century Isfahan.
