A RECLINING BEAUTYSAFAVID IRAN, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURYA RECLINING BEAUTYSAFAVID IRAN, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURYOpaque pigments heightened with gold on blue paper, the woman lies, semi-nude, with her arms folded over her head, gold landscape details picked out around, laid down between colourful rules on gold-speckled marginsPainting 3 3/4 x 7 1/4in. (9.5 x 18.5cm.); folio 5 1/4 x 8 5/8in. (13.5 x 22cm.)Reza ‘Abbasi (the artist who painted the Bulbul in the current sale, lot 53), was the master who introduced the first real ‘nude’ in Persian painting. Until that point nude, or partially clothed, figures had appeared only as part of manuscript illustration. Amongst others, one of the frequently depicted scenes containing a partial nude is from Nizami’s epic Khosraw wa Shirin – the moment when Khosraw inadvertently catches sight of Shirin bathing in a pond, her hair usually protecting her modesty (Axel Langer (ed.), The Fascination of Persia. The Persian European Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Art & Contemporary Art of Teheran, exhibition catalogue, Zurich, 2013, p.180). Reza’s nudes, which are both attributed to circa 1590-95, include a drawing, A Maiden Reclines, in the Harvard Art Museum (where it was a gift of Edith I. Welch in memory of Stuart Cary Welch; 2011.536) and a Reclining Nude (in the Freer Gallery of Art (F.1954.24). They are not isolated works - a number of his pupils such as Muhammad Qasim (d.1659) and Mir Afzal al-Husayni (active 1642-66) also painted the same composition. European models are a likely source of inspiration for the nudes painted by Reza and his pupils. In the period of Shah ‘Abbas I, Italian works of art were readily available in the ‘boutique [du] Venetien Aléxandre Scudenoli’ at the bazaar in Isfahan (Pietro della Valle, Histoire apologetique d’Abbas, roi de Perse, Paris, 1631, p.32, quoted in Langer, op.cit., p.181). It is also thought that the Dutch East India Company brought large numbers of engravings to Persia. The artist responsible for our painting seems to have modelled the painting on Reza’s A Maiden Reclines. The pose is the same, with the arms crossed over the head, the veil entangled in her hair, and a cocoon of a blanket wrapped around her. Reza in turn seems to have been inspired by an engraving, ostensibly of a dying Cleopatra on a daybed, by Marcantonio Roimondi (1465-1534) reproduced here. Another version of the subject, by Mir Afzal al-Husayni, attributed to 1640, is in the British Museum (1974,0617,0.15.24; published in Langer, op.cit., p.190). The navy ground, presumably used to indicate the moody night sky, is rare in Safavid painting. A Safavid painting of lovers, attributed to circa 1630-40, in the Minneapolis Institute of Art uses the same feature (acc.no.51.37.38) as does a portrait of a seated young man, circa 1600-25, in the Chester Beatty Library (Per 246.4). A painting of two lovers in the Smithsonian attributed to the early 17th century also shares the same feature (acc.S1986.294). In all three examples the blue background is highlighted with floral and landscape elements picked out in gold.细节 A RECLINING BEAUTYSAFAVID IRAN, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURYOpaque pigments heightened with gold on blue paper, the woman lies, semi-nude, with her arms folded over her head, gold landscape details picked out around, laid down between colourful rules on gold-speckled marginsPainting 3 3/4 x 7 1/4in. (9.5 x 18.5cm.); folio 5 1/4 x 8 5/8in. (13.5 x 22cm.)