A Gathering of Dervishes

Not on view

This refined painting has a slightly subversive subject, that of a gathering of mystics many of whom appear to be under the influence of intoxicating substances. One group on the right prepares the mixture in a sieve, while its effects cause the dervishes to swoon, slouch or sprawl. The painting blurs the borders between religious ecstasy and dissolution, in an early development of a popular genre that was to take hold in painting for the duration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A Gathering of Dervishes, Opaque color and gold on paper

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