A youth within a rocky landscape, Persia, Isfahan, Safavid, circa 1590-1600

gouache heightened with gold, inscribed 'reza' in Persian at the lower left corner, thin inner borders of various colours, laid down on an album page with outer margins filled with gold animals and plants, reverse with a Persian quatrain in nasta'liq script within cloud bands against gold ground filled with scrolling vines, corner pieces with larger vegetal scrolls against gold, red and blue grounds, inner borders with 10 rectangular panels of nasta'liq script, scrolling gold foliate margins

In generally good overall condition, water stain to lower corner, minor stains, minor losses to outer margin leaf edges, colours vivid and illumination bright, as viewed.
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inscriptions

A Persian quatrain on the reverse in nasta'liq script on divine providence and what ever is fated to happen will happen.

The present album page's large-scale and fully-coloured painting carries the signature of 'Reza', potentially Aqa Reza, the name of the artist Reza-i 'Abbasi, in his early years. Whilst Reza-i 'Abbasi was certainly responsible for a number of single figure studies of various youths within landscapes, often holding bottles or cups, this particular painting, with its slender subject, exhibits a delicacy that one might associate more with Sadiqi Beg, who was also active at the same time.

The painting as a whole can be compared with another kneeling youth now in the Aga Khan Museum Trust Collection (see S.R. Canby, Princes, Poets & Paladins, London, 1998, p.73, no.44). When this painting was sold in these rooms on 7 July 1980, it was attributed to Reza-i 'Abbasi. However, Stuart Cary Welch and Anthony Welch later re-attributed it to Sadiqi Beg, citing the "elongated fingers and wispy hair" that it shared with a drawing in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, also by Sadiqi Beg (ibid). These same features can be found in the present picture, as well as a similarity between the Chinese-influenced clouds, and the execution of the figure's garments, sash and turban.