A MONKEY-TRAINER ON HORSEBACK, ATTRIBUTED TO REZA-I ABBASI, PERSIA, ISFAHAN, CIRCA 1605-1610

Sakisian 1929, fig.107
Welch, A. 1973, no.10, p.30
Ettinghausen 1973, vol.VII, nos.3-4
Welch A. 1976, fig.56, pp.145-7
Robinson 1977, p.505
Canby 1996, cat.46, pp.83, 185

This is a masterpiece of drawing, of exquisite quality, attributed to the greatest painter of the court of Shah Abbas, Reza-i Abbasi, also known as Aqa Reza.

The subject of this unusual drawing is a monkey-trainer, or qarrad, riding an emaciated horse. The qarrad was a travelling entertainer, who would roam the country, stopping for his monkey to dance and perform. Here, the characterization of the man, the monkey and the starving nag, are typical of Reza's playfulness, skills and psychological incisiveness. As well as breathtaking draughtsmanship, exhibited in the elegance and firmness of the long calligraphic lines of the man and horse, and the fineness of the details such as the man's beard, the monkey's fur and the horse's mane and tail, the drawing is imbued with a comic animation that was a mark of Reza's intelligent talent. The toothy, grinning enthusiasm of the human trainer is contrasted both with the plodding, resigned vacancy on the face of the horse, and with the reserved intelligence portrayed on the face of the monkey. It is almost as if the monkey is in charge, perched high on the shoulder of his "trainer", looking forwards in the direction of travel with both hands on the shoulder of the man, not so much clinging on as directing, driving the man and the horse. In the composition and facial characterization the artist is consciously reversing the roles of the man and the monkey, while the scrawny horse plods on, looking, seemingly oblivious to the weight on his back. Reza is perhaps creating a humorous comment on life and fortune, in which the supposed intelligence and dominance of the human trainer is subtly subverted by the crafty monkey he has trained, to the point where the monkey is in command. Anthony Welch has noted that the trainer's face is somewhat simian, while the monkey's is 'strangely humanoid'. And what is the horse's role in this? Apparently stupid and benign, there is a sense that ultimately the horse is the most spiritually fulfilled, having thrown off worldliness and material concerns, resigned to following a long path, guided by others and caring not about food or rich caparisons. In his emaciated state he reminds us of the countless figures of human ascetics, physically thin but spiritually healthy, such as that of Majnun in the tale of Layla va Majnun.

The drawing has been attributed by Stuart Cary Welch, Anthony Welch and Sheila Canby to Reza, the most recent and thorough discussion placing the work in Reza's "rebellious" period between 1606 and 1608 (Canby 1996, cat.46, pp.83, 89-90, 185), which would fit with the subject matter and themes of the drawing.

Reza was born around the year 1565, the son of the mid-16th  century Safavid court painter Ali Asghar. He followed his father's profession and by the mid-1580s was active as a painter. Canby dates his first surviving work, signed Aqa Reza, to 1585 (Young Man in a Blue Coat, Harvard University Art Museums, see Canby 1996, cat.1), and notes that "his eight earliest known works rely on the Qazvin court style of the 1570s and 1580s.....but they are infused with the fresh vision of a brilliant young artist." His first surviving dated work is from 1591 (Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul, MS.H.2166, fol.18a, Canby 1996, cat.14). During the late 1580s and early 1590s he is thought to have contributed several illustrations to a manuscript of Firdausi's Shahnameh possibly executed for Shah Abbas I (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ms.277, Canby 1996, cats.9-12). After Shah Abbas moved his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan in 1598, Reza was given the title Abbasi, and subsequently used the signature "Reza-i Abbasi" on many occasions, although he did not use it frequently until after 1610. From around 1603, in what scholars have referred to as a "mid-life crisis", Reza veered away from his courtly life and employment, associating with wrestlers, and other riff-raff. This "rebellion" may have coincided, even been partly caused by, the four-year absence of Shah Abbas from the court in Isfahan while he was engaged in military endeavours. Reza's output from these years is dominated by drawings of dervishes, wrestlers other subjects from a context of street life, which are among his most spirited, incisive and artistically poignant productions. After 1610 Reza returned somewhat to more mainstream subjects and a more mature, replete courtly style. His later years saw the production of highly polished portraits of idealized youths and maidens, often in romanticized settings, of sheikhs and hunched greybeards, and of conventional manuscript illustrations. Reza was the most influential artist of the 17th century, numbering among his pupils several of the great artists of the Isfahan school, including Mu'in Musavvir. For a full account of Reza and his life and works see Canby 1996.

Cary Welch considered this drawing one of the most prized pieces in his collection. Among the many notes written by Welch on the backboard of the frame are several mentions of the artist's name Aqa Reza, and longer notes such as the following:

"This is one of the most powerful images in Iranian art! C.W. Sept '96 [after LONG reflection]"
"of all the Iranian things I own, this one strikes me as being one of  the most profound and marvellous, C.W. Dec '74"
"Reza's love of 'low-life' no doubt necessary to satisfy his creative need for friends of rough, feeling sort"
"an important part of a Turkoman painter's technical equipment was his training with the reed pen and brush. His long, graceful, thickening and thinning runs of the pen and brush would be impossible[?] had he not been trained [?] from childhood as a writer of nasta`liq, the gracefully flowing, highly rhythmic, expressively sensitive script in which the H[oughton] Sh.[ahnameh] is written. "