AN ILLUMINATED ALBUM PAGE WITH AN ARCHAISTIC PORTRAIT OF A SAFAVID NOBLEMAN
Qajar Iran, late 19th - early 20th century

Opaque pigments, pencil, ink, and gold on paper, the vertical composition depicting a standing nobleman dressed in typical Safavid fashion with an embroidered hunting-style coat over a long cobalt blue gown, and with a tall red taj baton protruding from his voluminous white turban, holding a blue and white porcelain bottle and drinking cup in his hands, the pictorial style and subject harking back at 17th-century Isfahani school examples, set against a golden ground and encased within concentric illuminated borders with vegetal trellis, beading and rosette scrolls with fleshy saz leaves, mounted and framed, 39cm x 30cm including the frame.