The tiny holes around the figure of this hunter chasing game birds indicate that this sketch was used as a pounce, to copy the image onto another work. In Islamic paintings, stock figures that filled court or battle scenes or natural elements that elaborated landscape backgrounds were often copied into a number of compositions from preexisting sketches such as this. Holes were pricked around the image to be copied and transferred onto an underlying paper by dusting charcoal over it.

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