Composite album folio, Dancing sufis; Cluster of primrose, calligraphic panels

Object Details

• Artist

  Muhammadi

  Master Murad

• Calligrapher

  Shah Mahmud al-Nishapuri

• Description

  Detached album folio: page of calligraphy with paintings; two calligraphic panels in Persian black nasta'liq script and two paintings; panel of calligraphy from Gulistan (Rose garden) by Sa'di in the upper right-hand corner; painting: Cluster of primrose by Master Murad in the lower right-hand corner; five couplets of poem by Shah Mahmud al-Nishapuri in the lower left-hand corner; tinted drawing: Dancing sufis attributed to Muhammadi of Herat in the upper left-hand corner.

  Border: The painting and the text are set in red and gold rulings with a tendril scroll inner frame and gold, red and black outer frame mounted on a green paperboard with gold floral motifs.

• Inscriptions

  Lower right, "work of Ustad Murad."

  Lower left, "work of the slave Shah Mahmud."

  Upper left, "done by Master Muhammadi of Herat."

  Seal: Abbas, slave of the monarch sainthood [Ali b. Abi-Talib]."

• Label

  During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Iran, individual paintings and drawings were often mounted together with fragments of poetry and bound in albums. This album leaf is formed of four very different elements. The text page in the upper right is from a sixteenth-century manuscript of the Gulistan (Rose Garden) by the Persian poet Sa'di (ca. 1213-1292). The lines of delicate script in the lower left comprise a love poem copied by the sixteenth century calligrapher Shah-Mahmud al-Nishapuri (died ca. 1564-;65). The primrose plant is inscribed with the name of the seventeenth-century painter Master Murad. The tinted line drawing of dancers, who may belong to the mystical order of Sufism, is attributed to the well-known artist Muhammadi of Herat (active ca. 1560-91).

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Engaging the Senses (October 14, 2017 - ongoing)

  Arts of the Islamic World (May 3, 1998 to January 3, 2016)

  Islamic Art (May 9, 1993 to June 3, 1997)

  Art of the Court of Shah Tahmasp (December 16, 1979 to August 14, 1980)

  The Brush of the Masters: Drawings from Iran (October 14, 1978 to May 30, 1979)

  Special Exhibition of Persian Art (May 1, 1960 to August 11, 1961)

  Special Exhibition, Near Eastern Art (September 15, 1953 to February 9, 1954)

  Islamic Art (November 3, 1944 to February 4, 1945)

  Exhibition of Islamic Art (February 24 to March 22, 1937)

  A Special Exhibition of Persian Art (January 6 to 27, 1935)

  Untitled Exhibition, University of Michigan, 1935 (1935)

• Origin

  Qazvin, Iran

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1500s, 1610s, 1600s, 1590s, 1540s, 1650s, 1530s, 1640s, 1520s, 1630s, 1510s, 1620s, 1580s, 1730s, 1690s, 1570s, 1680s, 1560s, 1670s, 1550s, 1660s

• Name

  Muhammadi, al-Nishapuri, Shah Mahmud, Murad, Master

• Place

  Qazvin

• Topic

  S?afavid dynasty, 1501-1736, Art, Dance, Arts of the Islamic World, Poetry, Flowers, Sufism

• Culture

  Muslims, Iranians

• Language

  Nasta?li-q script

• Object Type

  Paintings