Courtiers Hunting

As previously mentioned, the hunt was a pastime that was the prerogative of the court, and in this lyrically orchestrated drawing a prince (the only crowned figure) and his courtiers are spread out across the landscape in lively yet controlled cadences. Highly finished, this drawing is the functional equivalent of a painting — shading, pattern, and the precision of detail remove the need for color. The foreground vignette of an ideally handsome young nobleman cutting with his sword a leopard that has killed an antelope could easily be plucked out to form a separate drawing were it not for the addition of a curious fox observing the contest. The courtier who rides at full gallop and thrusts his lance into a tumbling bear dominates the center of the composition as well as lends it a certain air of gay abandon. The falconer entering the scene from the upper left adds another dimension to the hunt.

While many of these scenes of the hunt formed a part of frontispieces (MMA 1975.192.17), many others were painted as illustrations for manuscripts.[1]

This drawing appears not to relate a specific tale but to represent a generic royal hunt in very much the same way as the hunting scene woven in a cut-velvet tent panel in the Museum's collection (1972.189) or a superb tinted drawing in the Freer (54.32), which in its density of hunters and prey seems to depict a battue, that is, a hunt in an enclosed space to which the animals are driven. The Museum's drawing appears to have been made for an album. with leaves probably similar to the one on which it is now mounted, which in its decorated borders depicts a hunting scene, contrasting in its loosely constructed spare linearity with the controlled polish of the work it surrounds. The quality of the drawing suggests that it was commissioned and attests to the presence of sophisticated connoisseurs attuned to this type of highly finished drawing.

[Swietochowski and Babaie 1989]

Footnotes:

1. For a frontispiece, see a Divan of Jami (13.228.4) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Turkomen, 15th century. For two examples of manuscript illustration, see Stchoukine, Ivan. Les Peintures des Manuscrits Safavis de 1502 à 1587. Paris 1959, pl. XXVIII; and Welch, Stuart Cary. Persian Painting: Five Royal Safavid Manuscripts of the Sixteenth Century. New York, 1976, pl 13.

A Princely Hunt

The hunt was a favorite pastime of the court. Descriptions of actual and legendary royal hunts abound in Persian historical and literary sources. In these, the ruler/hero is often equated with an ideal hunter and the hunt is used as a metaphor for either the ruler's prowess and courage or as a mystical experience. In Persian art , representations of the hunt appear in a variety of media with the most common form being in manuscript illustrations or single page paintings and drawings.

This delicately drawn and tinted hunt scene appears to have been made for an album. From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, major articles executed highly finished drawings and single-page paintings, often on commission but also on speculation, for sophisticated connoisseurs. These independent works of art did not necessarily relate a specific story or a known text. Rather they were appreciated for their creative interpretation of popular literary or genre themes and for their artistic merit. Such works were often collected in albums.

Sussan Babaie in [Walker et al. 1994]

[ Georges Tabbagh, New York, until 1917; sold to MMA]

Palm Beach, FL. The Society of the Four Arts. "Loan to the Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Fl," February 2, 1962–February 27, 1962, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 13–December 31, 1989, no. 7.

Mexico City. Colegio de San Ildefonso. "Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York," September 30, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 19.

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammedan Decorative Arts. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1930. pp. 41–42, ill. fig. 14 (b/w).

Swietochowski, Marie, and Sussan Babaie. Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 7, pp. 24–25, ill. (b/w).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel S. Walker, Arturo Ponce Guadián, Sussan Babaie, Stefano Carboni, Aimee Froom, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, Tomoko Masuya, Annie Christine Daskalakis-Matthews, Abdallah Kahli, and Rochelle Kessler. "Colegio de San Ildefonso, Septiembre de 1994–Enero de 1995." In Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994. no. 19, pp. 82–83, ill. (b/w).