The so-called Parthian shot, that is, the arrow shot delivered backward while galloping forward, required considerable practice and was an important skill of the Mongol cavalrymen, which allowed them to better many other armies. Although the horsemen wear post-Ilkhanid tunics, battle scenes from the early fourteenth century are similar in spirit to these sixteenth-century figures, which were drawn from earlier models. Likewise, the horses have the stance of Mongolian ponies, but details, such as their straight long tails and proportionally small heads, indicate Safavid taste.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Two Mounted Warriors
Date:mid-16th century
Geography:Attributed to Iran
Medium:Ink, watercolor, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions:H. 3 3/4 in. (9.5 cm) W. 3 3/16 in. (8. 1 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Bequest of George D. Pratt, 1935
Accession Number:45.174.3
Two Mounted Warriors
The Parthian shot, that is, the shot delivered backward while galloping forward, must have required considerable practice. It was also a worthy challenge for an artist. Here, unusually graceful rhythms have been set up and the movements of the pair of horsemen and their mounts have the happy harmony of a ballet. The left-handed rider facing us has just released his arrow while his horse lags slightly behind that of his companion. The other, with his bow stretched to the full, is about to release his arrow. His shoulders are hunched with the effort, while strength seems to be drawn along the pronounced line down his spine.
There is a later drawing of two hunters shooting a leopard in which their positions and those of their horses are very close to the Museum's drawing, differing mainly in costume, in the position of the horses' legs, and the spacing of the figures (figure 11 in this volume, Sotheby's London, April 3, 1978, lot 42). Although that drawing is more developed compositionally and more finished, it lacks the harmonious relationship between the horsemen that is the crowning glory of the Museum's drawing. The Sotheby's drawing is dated in the upper-right-hand corner 1052 A.H./A.D. 1642, and is in the style of that period, while the Museum's drawing, probably dating to the mid-sixteenth century, comes out of the fifteenth-century Herat tradition.
In the Museum's drawing, the target is not visible, so whether the archers are warriors or hunters cannot be determined. The Parthian shot, however, takes its name from a battle maneuver. Battle scenes from as early as the opening decades of the fourteenth century are similar in spirit to the horsemen in the Museum's drawing and are not infrequently shown from a back view.[1]
At an undetermined later date, the gold and some of the landscape elements including the peculiar scattered flowerheads were added to the drawing, and the head of the second horse seems to have been carelessly gilded over, but the outline is still visible. Fortunately, the drawing is so tautly unified in its interplay of line and form that the later additions do not substantially detract from it.
[Swietochowski and Babaie 1989]
Footnotes:
I. See Ipşiroglu, M. S. Saray-Alben: Diez'sche Klebebände aus den Berliner Sammlungen. Wiesbaden, 1964, pI. IX.
George D. Pratt, New York (by 1933–d. 1935); Vera Amherst Hale Pratt, New York (life interest 1935–45)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 13–December 31, 1989, no. 3.
New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Riding Across Central Asia: Images of the Mongolian Horse in Islamic Art," April 26–November 12, 2000.
Swietochowski, Marie, and Sussan Babaie. Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 3, pp. 16–17, ill. pl. 3 (b/w).
Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (Iranian, Paj ca. 940/41–1020 Tus)
ca. 1525
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