A SEATED YOUTH HOLDING A CUP OF COFFEE, PERSIA, SAFAVID, MID-17TH CENTURY

Ex-private collection, Germany. 

Acquired from Galerie Boisserée, Cologne, circa 1960s/70s (label on reverse of frame).

This figure of a youth seated in a landscape is typical of the work of artists of the Isfahan School associated with followers of Reza-i Abbasi in the second quarter of the seventeeth century.

In his right hand the youth holds a porcelain cup. While such vessels frequently represent wine cups in Isfahan paintings of this period, the column of steam rising from the cup, delicately painted in grey (or perhaps silver that has oxidised) indicates that the liquid in the cup is hot, almost certainly coffee. This is underlined by the careful manner in which the youth holds the cup, resting it on his semi-closed fist as if the sides of the cup are too hot to grip. The importance of coffee houses in the the cultural and artistic evolution of Isfahan in the seventeenth century has come to be more clearly understood in recent decades, revealing the extensive popularity of the drink itself, the coffee houses where it was available, and the socio-cultural scene that developed around it (see, e.g., Emami 2016).