English: AN ADORING COUPLE AND A CALLIGRAPHIC PANEL

THE PAINTING SIGNED ‘ALI QULI JABBADAR, SAFAVID IRAN, DATED AH 1066/1655-56 AD; THE CALLIGRAPHY SAFAVID IRAN, 17TH CENTURY

Recto with opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the couple sit on a terrace beneath a white canopy attended by servants, signature in small nasta’liq towards the centre of the painting, laid down between minor pink and blue borders and polychrome rules on wide pink margins, verso with a calligraphic panel with 12ll. of neat black nasta’liq arranged in two columns with double gold intercolumnar rule, larger lines of strong black nasta’liq above and below, laid down between pink borders on wide green margin Painting 5 7/8 x 5in. (14.9 x 12.8cm.); calligraphy 6 ½ x 3 ½in. (16.5 x 8.9cm.); folio 11 3/8 x 6 7/8in. (29 x 17.6cm.)

‘Ali Quli Jabbadar was one of the leading artists in Iran in the late 17th century. Very little is known of his life. We can be sure that he was the official court painter to Shah Suleyman (r.1666-1694) from the paintings he produced of the ruler that are in the St Petersburg Muraqqa’ (Francesca von Habsburg, Yury A. Petrosyan, Stuart Cary Welch, Anatoly Ivanov and Oleg Akamushkin, The St. Petersburg Muraqqa, Lugano and Milan 1996, f.98, pl.173 and f.99, pl.191). When discussing this artist in relation to his work in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’, Ivanov notes that he can be identified with the ‘Ali Quli Beg Farangi whom the 18th century author Lutf 'Ali Beg Isfahani wrote as having been born a Christian who had then taken up Islam (Petrosyan et al, op.cit., p.36). He is also known to have signed with the epithet Arna'ut, the Ottoman name for Albania, indicating his probable origin (Abolala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, p.369). His signature can also include the epithet Gholam-zade-ye qadimi (son of a long-term slave of the king) indicating that it was his father's service at the Safavid court which had brought him to Iran (Soudavar, op.cit. p.369).

In the painting offered here, he signs slightly differently - Gholam-zade Shah ‘Abbas thani. This signature is found on two other works of his and is translated by Stuart Cary Welch as ‘He! The very humble ‘Ali Quli, destined to be the slave of Shah ‘Abbas’ (Petrosyan et al, op.cit., p.64). Given that ‘Ali Quli is known to have worked into the eighteenth century, the works with the signature that refer to Shah ‘Abbas II (r.1642-66), must be his earliest.

One of the other works signed in this manner is a painting in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa’ of a gathering of Mughal warriors at night listening to a sage (f.64r, pl.44). The other is a painting of three children of Charles I of England,which he copied from a European oil by Van Dyke (M.A.Karimzadeh Tabrizi, The Lives Art of Old Painters of Iran, Vol. I, London, 1985, p.390). Karimzadeh writes that neither of the other two examples of this signature are dated. Ours is therefore extremely significant – it gives an indication of a date by which he must have entered the court of Shah ‘Abbas II (1655-56) and also by which he took the name ‘Ali Quli, presumably at the point when he converted to Islam.

A similar painting to that offered here sold in these Rooms, 18 October 1994, lot 12. ‘Ali Quli was heavily influenced by classical Mughal painting, and both the painting offered here and that sold in 1994 illustrate this. ‘Ali Quli is known to have copied several Indian miniatures in very different styles - for instance two versions of a scene attributable to Payag in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa (Petrosyan et al, op.cit., f.52, pl.41). In apparent contrast he also painted a poor Indian water-carrier which has almost the clarity of a late Company School painting (sold Laurin, Guilloux, Buffetaud and Tailleur, Art Islamique, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 23 June 1982, lot 12).