The Qajar-era interest in subjects and styles borrowed from earlier periods is well illustrated in this drawing of a group of men gathered in a natural setting. Thematically this piece can be linked to a group of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century works depicting scenes of outdoor entertainment and conversation. The careful attention given to the finished rendering of the head—as against the simplified outline drawing of the bodies and robes—is also characteristic of this genre of drawings. In the nineteenth century, however, the choice of this style with caricaturized facial features may suggest a novel use of drawings for the purpose of satire.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Assembly of Four Sufis
Date:late 19th–early 20th century
Geography:Attributed to Iran
Medium:Ink, watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions:H. 9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm) W. 5 3/4 in. (14.6 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Gift of Charles K. and Irma B. Wilkinson, 1979
Object Number:1979.461
An Unusual Assembly
This twentieth-century drawing is of great interest for several reasons. Thematically, it is a direct descendant of the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century drawings of the scenes of entertainment and conversation in the open.[1] Similar to our drawing in intent, but different in context, since it is a picnic, is a drawing in the Cleveland Museum of Art (44.49, figure 34 in this volume). Stylistically, the Museum's drawing also descends from such seventeenth-century drawings as the Seated Dervish by Muhammad Tahir in the Keir Collection (III.352, figure 35 in this volume). Although little of Muhammad Tahir's fluid calligraphic line is to be seen in our drawing, the almost brutally caricaturized elders with their narrow slanted eyes and exaggerated noses and even the position of raised knees in the two elders in front are undoubtedly in the tradition of their seventeenth-century model. Also similar is the careful attention given to the finished rendering of the head, as against the simplified outline drawing of the bodies and robes. There seems to have been a resurgent interest in this mode of representation, which has a great potential for satire, in early-twentieth-century Persian art.[2]
[Swietochowski and Babaie 1989]
Footnotes:
I. See Blochet, Edgar. Les Enluminures des Manuscrits Orientaux . .. de la Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris, 1926, pI. LXXXIV; and Sotheby's, April 21,1980, lot 75.
2. The Local Meeting, Christie's, June 11 and 12, 1984, fig. 171.
Charles K. and Irma B. Wilkinson, Sharon, CT (until 1979; gifted to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 13–December 31, 1989, no. 36.
Swietochowski, Marie, and Sussan Babaie. Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 36, pp. 82–83, ill. pl. 36 (b/w).
`Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Iranian, Rey 903–986 Shiraz)
late 15th century
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