Portrait of a Lady Holding a Flower

Portrait of a Lady Holding a Flower

This charming portrait of a young woman lightly grasping a stalk of daisies has been ascribed to the Khurasan artist Muhammadi and bears the stamp of Shah ‘Abbas I. Despite these indications that the work was once in the royal Safavid collection, it has apparently been overlooked by the scholars who have published articles on Muhammadi in recent decades.[1]

In its conception, style, and execution, the painting is typical of pictures universally accepted as the authentic work of Muhammadi from about 1565 to 1575. The young woman stands facing right, holding both hands up in front of her and tipping the flowers toward her face as if to sniff their fragrance. Her stylish kerchief is decorated with a colorful floral scroll and a red lining over a band of cloth and gem-set gold that ties at the back of her head and is suspended down her back, perhaps covering her hair. Each of the several layers of her clothing is clearly delineated. A blue cloak with gold phoenixes and deer covers her red dress, which is modestly fastened up to her neck with gold buttons. Under the skirts of this dress, gathered up and tucked into the narrow multicolored sash at her waist, she wears a gold knee-length skirt with vertical stripes decorated with scrolling patterns and folded back to reveal its green lining. Trousers with blue, brown, and white stripes, a sort of fancy long underwear, cover her legs. Her weight appears to be firmly placed on her right foot, shod in a green slipper, while she lifts and tilts her left foot up slightly.

The finesse of Muhammadi’s brushwork is most evident in the woman’s face. He has painted both the brown irises and black pupils of her eyes, her eyebrows form perfect arcs, and with one stroke of the brush he has rendered her small, straight nose. Despite paint loss, the pearl band under the woman’s chin is still visible. Many details of this figure, from her fingertips, blackened with henna, to her trousers, headdress, and lifted foot, can be found in the painting A Pair of Lovers in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which bears the same attribution and seal as this painting.[2] Unlike the Boston painting, the present work does not place the figure in a landscape, but its approach to single-figure portraiture is more typical of Muhammadi throughout his career. Although he worked on some commissions from the Safavid rulers in Qazvin, he appears to have spent his whole life in Herat. As Abolala Soudavar has noted, the later Safavid written sources are almost silent on the subject of Muhammadi, mostly likely because at the end of his life he worked for the Uzbeks who controlled Herat.[3] Nonetheless, artists such as Riza-yi ‘Abbasi noted their debt to this painter, whose graceful style informed the school of Khurasan for the last quarter of the sixteenth century.[4]

Sheila R. Canby in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

1. Robinson, B. 1992; Soudavar 2000.

2. Coomaraswamy 1929, no. 45, pl. 22; Robinson, B. 1992, p. 19; Soudavar 2000, p. 54.

3. Soudavar 2000, p. 69.

4. Canby 1996b, p. 151, no. 113.

Inscription: Inscribed at lower right in Persian in nasta‘liq script:
عمل استاد محمدی هروی
The work of Master Muhammadi of Herat

Seal impression, at upper left:
بنده شاه ولایت عباس 99 ۵
Slave of the king of Holiness [Imam ‘Ali], ‘Abbas 995 [1587]

(Translation from "Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," 2011, p. 218).

Jack S. Rofe, Scotland (until 1929; his sale, Sotheby's, London, December 12, 1929, no. 635); [ Hagop Kevorkian, New York, by 1953]; [ Kevorkian Foundation, New York, until 1955; sold to MMA]

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. "Les Miniatures Orientales de la Collection Goloubew au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston." Ars Asiatica vol. XIII (1929). no. 45, ill, pl. 22.

Robinson, Basil William. The Kevorkian Collection: Islamic and Indian Illustrated Manuscripts, Miniature Paintings and Drawings. New York, 1953. no. CLXVIII, p. 85.

Dimand, Maurice S. "An Exhibit of Islamic and Indian Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n. s., vol. 14 (December 1955). p. 92, ill. (b/w).

Grube, Ernst J. "from Collections in the United States and Canada." In Muslim Miniature Paintings from the XIII to XIX Century. Venice: N. Pozza, 1962. p. 115 (listed).

Robinson, Basil William. "Muhammadi and the Khurasan Style." Iran (1992). pp. 17–29.

Canby, Sheila R. "The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi Abbasi of Isfahan." In The Rebellious Reformer . London: Azimuth Editions, 1996. no. 113, p. 151.

Soudavar, Abolala. "The Age of Muhammadi." Muqarnas (2000). pp. 53–72.

Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, ed. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 145, pp. 218–19, ill. p. 218 (color).