
Cleveland Museum of Art
Persian Couplets (recto); Sleeping Youth (verso)
Riza-yi Abbasi
- Date
- late 1500s–early 1600s
- Medium
- ink, gold, and opaque watercolor on paper
- Culture
- Iran, Isfahan, Safavid period (1501-1722)
- Department
- Islamic Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Under Shah Abbas, the tradition in which painting was employed to illustrate a literary work was all but abandoned. In its place came a new concern with single-page illustrations, such as this one, which have no specific content or meaning. They often illustrate albums of collections of verses about love and beauty, in which these themes often appear to serve as allegories of things divine.
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