A Youth with Bottle and Cup, attributable to Reza-i 'Abbasi, with calligraphy by Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi, Persia, Safavid, circa 1610

gouache heightened with gold on paper, the painting bordered by panels of nasta'liq script in black ink, leafy sprays in gold in the outer margins, reverse with a calligraphic quatrain in black nasta'liq script, signed 'Mashhadi', interspersed with polychrome flowers, bordered with further text panels, with large flowers within blue-grey outer margins

In generally good overall condition, diagonal crease on painting from top left corner to lower right, horizontal crease to top of panting, some staining to outer margins, paper losses to reverse outer margins, light creasing, colours bright, as viewed.
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Various features of the present portrait suggest the work of the great draughtsman and artist of the Isfahan court Reza-i Abbasi. Active in the late sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century, one of Reza's common themes was the depiction of youthful figures. Often, as in this example, they were rendered in colour against backgrounds drawn only in gold.

The drawing can be compared closely to a number of other paintings signed by Reza-i Abbasi, including three in the Art and History Trust Collection (published in Soudavar 1992, pp.265-71, nos.104, 107 and 109). In the latter drawing, one can closely observe the tightly-pursed lips and pointed eyebrows that meet at the top of the figure's rounded nose. no.107 shares the same features, and others including the leafy young tree which emanates from behind the sitter, as well as the classically-inspired cup and bottle, held by the figure in the present painting, and sitting at the feet of no.107. In the former painting (no.104), we see another youth with cup and bottle, whose comparable loose garments exemplify the angular hem folds common to Reza-Abbasi's figure studies.

Further comparable portraits by Reza-i Abbasi can be found in numerous reference books including E.J. Grube, Muslim Miniature Painting, Venice, 1962, pl.110; A.Welch, Shah Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan, New York, 1973, pl.50; T. Falk (Ed.), Treasures of Islam, Geneva, 1985, nos.85 amd 86) and S.R. Canby, Persian Painting, London, 1993, no.66. Paintings of youths have been sold in these rooms 14 April 2010, lot 66 and 26 April 1995, lot 81.

Two Timurid works signed by Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi (the scribe of the Persian quatrain on the reverse of the painting), a folio from a Divan by Sultan Husayn Bayqara and a further illustrated album folio, are on view in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as part of the exhibition 'Nasta'liq: The Genius of Persian Calligraphy', 13 September 2014-22 March 2015, Washington D.C (F1929.66 and S1986.305, respectively).