Walters Ms. W.749, Single leaf of plowing and selling produce

W.749

Single leaf of plowing and selling produce

This drawing was executed in Safavid Iran, most probably in the late tenth century AH / sixteenth CE, in Qazvin or Isfahan. Above, a farmer plows; below, a seated young man watches a produce seller weigh his purchase. On the rocks in the center foreground is inscribed the name of one of the most famous painters in Iran in the eleventh century AH / seventeenth CE, Riẓā ʿAbbāsī (fl. 1001-1044 AH / 1591-2 to 1634 CE). As the handwriting does not match that of the artist, an admirer of Riẓā’s work seems to have attributed the drawing to him. The execution and the bucolic subject matter of this drawing relate closely to the oeuvre of the Persian artist Muḥammadi Haravī (fl. late tenth century AH / sixteenth CE), who worked in Qazvin. It is possible that this composition was conceived as a manuscript page.

Late 10th century AH / 16th CE to early 11th century AH / 17th CE

Iran (Qazvin or Isfahan)

As-written name: Riẓā ʿAbbāsī

Name, in vernacular: رضا عباسى

Note: Later spurious attribution

Leaf

Historical

The primary language in this manuscript is Persian.

Foliation: Not applicable

17.5 cm wide by 28.5 cm high

1. Image: 8.7 cm wide by 14.2 cm high

1. Title: Plowing and selling produce
2. Artist: Riẓā ʿAbbāsī
3. Decoration note: Salmon-colored paper with illuminated flora and fauna motifs for border; framing lines in blue, white, gold, and black

fol. W.749a:

1. 
2. Title: Plowing and selling produce
3. Form: Drawing
4. Label: The inscription Riz̤ā ʿAbbāsī appears in the rocks in the center foreground (a later spurious attribution). The image is surrounded by a border of two-toned floral and fauna motifs on salmon-tinted paper.

Walters Art Museum, 1952, by purchase

Grube, Ernst J., and Alberta Maria Fabris. Muslim Miniature Paintings from the XIII to XIX Century from Collections in the United States and Canada: Catalogue of the Exhibition. (Venezia: N. Pozza, 1962), 117.

Principal cataloger: Gacek, Adam

Catalogers: Landau, Amy; Smith, Sita

Editor: Bockrath, Diane

Conservators: Jewell, Stephanie; Quandt, Abigail

Contributors: Barrera, Christina; Emery, Doug; Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William; Simpson, Shreve; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.; Valle, Chiara

The Walters Art Museum

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