AN ARCHAISTIC SAFAVID-REVIVAL PORTRAIT OF A SAQI (CUPBEARER)
Iran, 20th century

Opaque pigments, pencil, black ink and gold on paper, the vertical composition a 20th-century homage to Safavid portraiture in the style introduced by the master painter Reza Abbasi and the Isfahani school, depicting a young saqi (cupbearer) holding a blue and white porcelain ewer in one hand and a golden drinking cup in the other, his robe embroidered in gold and decorated with cusped cartouches of dense calligraphy, curly golden Chinese-style clouds in the sky and birds perched on the tree behind the young man animating the background of the portrait, mounted on a later faded green cardboard album border, 35.3cm x 26.5cm.