A BATHING BEAUTYTHE PAINTING INDIA, DECCAN, PROBABLY AHMADNAGAR, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY; THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED MALIK, SAFAVID IRAN, MID 16TH CENTURYA BATHING BEAUTYTHE PAINTING INDIA, DECCAN, PROBABLY AHMADNAGAR, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY; THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED MALIK, SAFAVID IRAN, MID 16TH CENTURYVerso with a drawing of a nude girl holding a translucent muslin skirt, on gold ground illustrated with floral bushes in bright opaque pigments heightened with gold and silver, within gold and polychrome rules and gold-speckled margins, recto with an illuminated calligraphic panel with five lines of fine black nasta'liq written diagonally, signed Malik, within gold and polychrome rules and gold-speckled orange marginsPainting 8 5/8 x 5 3/4in. (22 x 14.5cm.); calligraphic panel 9 x 5 3/4in. (22.8 x 14.5cm.); folio 11 3/4 x 7 3/4in. (29.8 x 19.8cm.)Our bathing beauty shows an amalgamation of elements from two of the most accomplished painting schools in the 16th century, the Safavid court of Iran and the Deccan Sultanates of India. This painting is the work of an accomplished Persian artist who has clearly used his rigorous early Safavid training while absorbing the novel influences he discovered in the Deccan. The subject’s elegant Persian facial characteristics, depicting a perfectly round moon shaped face, delicately pouting lips, arched eyebrows and light almond eyes are all clearly Safavid. The drawing of the eyes which are executed without the eyelids actually connecting on either sides in an upward direction is a feature seen on early 16th century Safavid paintings such as the seated princess by Mirza 'Ali in Harvard Art Museum (inv. no. 1958.60). A further portrait with facial features similar to our painting is a portrait by a master artist contemporaneous with Mirza 'Ali sold in these Rooms, 20 June 2020, lot 48. It was attributable to Aqa Mirak, the director of Shah Tahmasp’s atelier during the later years of the production of the great ‘Shah Tahmasp Shahnama’. A further Safavid feature on our painting includes her henna tattooed hands and feet which our artist has very elegantly detailed on to her nude body. Henna tattoos are seen on Safavid paintings from the same period, such as on a folio from a khamsa of Nizami ascribed to Mir Sayyid ‘Ali, which depicts an outdoor scene with ladies whose hands and feet are also tattooed in a similar manner (Stuart Cary Welch, Wonders of the Age, exhibition catalogue, Harvard, 1979, no. 67, pp.178-79). Both Isfahan and the Mughal court served as centres for the exchange of artistic influences from the Mughal and Safavid courts and beyond. Many artists travelled between the two centres - for instance the celebrated Mughal court artist Bishandas, who was sent by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r.1605- 27) to the Safavid court of Shah Abbas (r.1588 -1629), and returned to India from Iran in 1619. The celebrated Persian Safavid artists who moved to India after the decline in the artistic commissions began during the latter reign of Shah Tahmasp include Farukh Beg (d. c. 1619), Muhammad 'Ali ( active c. 1590), Hossein Naqqash, Aqa Reza and Sheikh ‘Abbasi. These artists developed a successful career in India and inspired many artists of the time with the Safavid fashion of painting, and in return brought back many Mughal styles to the Safavid ateliers. Our beauty’s hair is most unusual and wild in comparison to the known Safavid depictions of scantily dressed ladies which are illustrated with tame, often braided long hair and different types of curls on the top of the head. The transparent muslin towel covering her naked body as she carefully attempts to step out of the river recalls not only Timurid and Safavid depictions of Shirin bathing watched by Khusraw, but also the native Indian bathing Deccani and Mughal nayikas and court ladies of the same period. A portrait of a ‘Scantily Clad Woman in a Landscape’, attributed to Golconda c. 1630-1650 in the David collection, Copenhagen is worth mentioning here (inv. no. 11/2011). In the commentary on this work, it is mentioned that portrayals of virtually naked women, in Iran emerged in a sub-genre that was influenced by engravings from Western Europe in the 17th-century. Later Safavid paintings of nude women, particularly those by Reza Abbasi and his followers are published in Kuhnel E., La miniature en Orient, Paris, 1922, p.88 and Binyon, Wilkinson and Gray: Persian Miniature Painting, New York, 1971, pl. CVIII. The physical characteristics of the latter Safavid examples are fuller in comparison to our figure which is less curvy and more elongated and in line with a 16th century date. The David Collection painting further illustrates that by 1620-30 the aesthetic had been completely modified by the Reza Abbasi school in the Deccan as well as in Iran. Our painting, in contrast, has features all of which point to the pre Shah ‘Abbas tradition of painting. Our artist’s choice of subject in the sixteenth century, was a brave and shocking gesture. The undecorated overall bright gold background is a further most unusual Safavid feature of this date. It was however a practice more common in Deccani, especially Ahmadnagar paintings of this time. The kingdom of Ahmadnagar enjoyed independence for a shorter time than either Bijapur and Golcanda and its painting is the rarest of the Deccani schools. The few surviving works possess “the gentle emotion and brilliant colour of fourteenth century Italian painting, with which they share a fondness for plain gold backgrounds” (Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, p17). Two portraits of Sultan Murtaza dating to c. 1575 produced in Ahmadnagar by the Paris painter depict him enthroned both alone and with a number of attendants on a solid gold undecorated ground which are very similar to the use of solid gold seen on our painting (Zebrowski, op. cit., no. 5 and 11, pp. 21, 34-35). An elegant portrait by the Persian artist Muhammad ‘Ali dating from the late 16th century and attributed to Ahmadnagar also shares the same elegance in the style of drawing and elongated body form, although depicted on a plain ground (Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Sotheby’s, London, 6 April 2011, lot 97). The design of the floral bushes and their arrangement on the page are a blend of both tamed Safavid floral bushes, such as Woman with a Spray of Flowers, Safavid circa 1575, in the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art inv. no. S1986.296 and the wild and varied Deccani flora and fauna illustrations, for example the Portrait of a Yogini with a Mynah Bird, in the Chester Beatty Library, inv. no. 11A.31, (M. Beach, E. Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy, Masters of Indian Painting:1650-1900, Zurich, 2011, no. 6, 8, 11, 12, pp.196-201). A further close comparable to the gold ground and floral decoration seen in our example is the painting of the Angel Tobias, by Hossein Naqqash, dating to circa 1590 in the Louvre Museum, Paris (inv. no. OA3619ha). Hossein was a Persian artist who migrated to the Mughal court and worked on the Akbarnama commissioned by Akbar in around 1590. In his painting of Tobias, the angle is depicted with Mughal features unlike our very Safavid girl, however the solid gold backgrounds of both paintings and floral arrangements share very similar executions. Ahmadnagar painting of this period is of the utmost rarity. The present painting with its weaving together of Indian and Persian elements may be an intellectual challenge for today’s scholars but the subject and its presentation remain as powerful today as they were for its audience when it was first executed, and the subject’s fragile beauty remains undeniable.细节 A BATHING BEAUTYTHE PAINTING INDIA, DECCAN, PROBABLY AHMADNAGAR, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY; THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED MALIK, SAFAVID IRAN, MID 16TH CENTURYVerso with a drawing of a nude girl holding a translucent muslin skirt, on gold ground illustrated with floral bushes in bright opaque pigments heightened with gold and silver, within gold and polychrome rules and gold-speckled margins, recto with an illuminated calligraphic panel with five lines of fine black nastaliq written diagonally, signed Malik, within gold and polychrome rules and gold-speckled orange marginsPainting 8 5/8 x 5 3/4in. (22 x 14.5cm.); calligraphic panel 9 x 5 3/4in. (22.8 x 14.5cm.); folio 11 3/4 x 7 3/4in. (29.8 x 19.8cm.) 来源 Franz Schaurte, Germany, (d. 1922) Thence by descent to previous owner ---------------------以下为软件翻译，仅供参考---------------------