Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
124
Lovers Embracing
Iran, probably Isfahan, Safavid period, c. 1650
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Folio: 33.5 × 22 cm (13 3/16 × 8 11/16 in.)
2002.50.23
To make this drawing, the artist used three colors of ink: black and red for the figures, and gold for the wispy, swaying trees and flowering plants of the outdoor setting. Gold also highlights robe lapels and buttons, trouser hems, turban trim, and the accoutrements of wine drinking—a small cup and a tall-necked ewer. The lining of the woman’s robe is filled in with blue; used together with white, this pigment defines the bowl behind the ewer as a blue-and-white ceramic (likely Iranian-made imitation porcelain).
The primary subject of the drawing is one of intimate, private bliss: a man lovingly embraces a woman, hugging her around the waist and lifting her from the ground, while she in turn snatches the turban from his head and carelessly upends her wine cup.
Despite its individualized charm, this depiction of a loving couple represents a fairly common type.[1] It shares with other drawings of the period, also classifiable by their human subjects,2 key elements of artistic execution—sinuous, carefully weighted contour outlines, “check marks” terminating knotted and bunched textiles, and fine stippling applied only to faces and hair—each element showing the artist’s fluency in a particular drafting technique.
David J. Roxburgh
[1] See, for example, Farhad 1987, cats. 10, 24.
[2] For instance, standing, sitting, or reclining single figures, male (cats. 121, 122) or female (cat. 123); paired men in conversation (cats. 119, 120) or amorous embrace (cat. 125); grooms with horses (cat. 119).
