Youth seated in the fork of a blossoming tree

Object Details

• Description

  Detached album folio: Youth seated in the fork of a blossoming tree looking at an open album.

  Border: The painting is set in gold and black rulings, in margins with pseudo Chinese characters, and an outer frame with panels of calligraphy in Persian black nasta'liq script; mounted on paperboard with gold floral motifs.

• Label

  Depictions of young, idealized men in abstracted garden settings became one of the most popular subjects in Persian painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The men were usually shown reading, writing, or in quiet contemplation, a theme that also appears in contemporaneous painting from India, such as the adjacent composition. In the Persian version, the "garden" has been reduced to a single flowering tree with large blossoms symbolizing the boy's youth and fragile beauty—a popular artistic convention.

• Provenance

  Walter Schulz [1]

  To 1942

  Henri Vever (1854-1942), Paris and Noyers, France, to 1942 [2]

  From 1942 to 1986

  Family member, Paris and Boulogne, France, by inheritance from Henri Vever, Paris and Noyers, France [3]

  From 1986

  Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, purchased from a family member, Paris and Boulogne, France [4]

  Notes:

  [1] According to information noted in the object record: "Walter Schulz Collection."

  [2] See Glenn D. Lowry et al., An Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of the Vever Collection (Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1988), pp. 302-303, no. 353.

  [3] See the Agreement for the Purchase and Sale of the Henri Vever Collection of January 9, 1986, Collections Management Office.

  [4] See note 3.

• Collection

  Arthur M. Sackler Collection

• Exhibition History

  Fashioning an Empire: Safavid Textiles from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (December 18, 2021 to May 15, 2022)

  East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art (February 24 to May 13, 2007)

  Crushed Lapis and Burnished Gold: The Art of Illumination (June 9 to December 8, 1991)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Philipp Walter Schulz

  Henri Vever (1854-1942)

  François Mautin (1907-2003)

• Origin

  probably Qazvin, Iran

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds, Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program, and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler

• 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

  Mautin, Francois Albert, Schulz, Philipp Walter, Vever, Henri

• Place

  Qazvin

• Topic

  Trees, S?afavid dynasty, 1501-1736, Reading, Art, Henri Vever collection, Arts of the Islamic World, Youth

• Culture

  Muslims, Iranians

• Object Type

  Paintings