.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
The top of this qalamdan suggests a confluence of elements from contemporary European art. Muhammad Zaman and his contemporaries were known to have been interested in and influenced by European painting. The scene in the background - with its riverine landscape, tall church steeples, and figures in broad-brimmed hands riding over a rickety bridge - evokes the miniaturised backdrops of Renaissance portraiture. A European landscape also features on the interior of another Safavid qalamdan in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.2000.491a,b). The signature on that example indicates that it was painted by Hajji Muhammad, the brother of Muhammad Zaman whose signature appears on our qalamdan, suggesting that the two brothers may have studied the same scenes together.
The combination of a European landscape and standing female figure can also be seen on a qalamdan dated to AH 1121 / 1709-10 AD which was signed by Muhammad Yusuf and sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2017, lot 124. A difference between that example and ours is that here the woman in the foreground is depicted leaning on a tree for support as she slides her left foot out of her shoe and up to her hand. This stance may suggest that she is engaged in removing a thorn from her foot, a subject which was also popular among the artists of the European renaissance, which goes back to classical antiquity. It appeared most famously on the walls of the bathroom of Cardinal Bibbiena, which were decorated with frescoes by Raphael in 1516, as part of the myth in which the goddess Venus pierced her foot on a rose thorn and stained the petals red. The scene was reproduced as bronze statuettes, such as one in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (acc.no.A.13-1964), and in prints, one of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc.no.49.97.322).
A very similar composition appears on an Indian pencase signed by a certain Manohar in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc.no.2002.416a,b). Though this is the name of an artist active at Akbar's court, the museum dates their pencase to the late 17th or early 18th century, making it probably slightly later in date than ours. A pencase with this design may have been used as a model by the Indian artist, or an artist may have travelled from Iran to India in search of patronage, perhaps hoping for more reliable patronage than they could find in an ever more unstable Iran.
The combination of a European landscape and standing female figure can also be seen on a qalamdan dated to AH 1121 / 1709-10 AD which was signed by Muhammad Yusuf and sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2017, lot 124. A difference between that example and ours is that here the woman in the foreground is depicted leaning on a tree for support as she slides her left foot out of her shoe and up to her hand. This stance may suggest that she is engaged in removing a thorn from her foot, a subject which was also popular among the artists of the European renaissance, which goes back to classical antiquity. It appeared most famously on the walls of the bathroom of Cardinal Bibbiena, which were decorated with frescoes by Raphael in 1516, as part of the myth in which the goddess Venus pierced her foot on a rose thorn and stained the petals red. The scene was reproduced as bronze statuettes, such as one in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (acc.no.A.13-1964), and in prints, one of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc.no.49.97.322).
A very similar composition appears on an Indian pencase signed by a certain Manohar in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc.no.2002.416a,b). Though this is the name of an artist active at Akbar's court, the museum dates their pencase to the late 17th or early 18th century, making it probably slightly later in date than ours. A pencase with this design may have been used as a model by the Indian artist, or an artist may have travelled from Iran to India in search of patronage, perhaps hoping for more reliable patronage than they could find in an ever more unstable Iran.