Details

Summary note

In the center of the composition Majnūn, the tormented lover, is kneeling and talking to the animals that surround him. He is sitting under a Bodhi tree, a feature which links the picture to India. In the background there are high rock-mounts on the left and a fragment of a building on the upper right side. The landscape in the middle section is meandering with large "island-like" areas -- a well-known setting in Mughal painting since the 1590s. The animals are also drawn in a Mughal style of that period, in their type and their detailed naturalistic representation (description by Mika Natif, 2008).

Notes

• Mounted: 32.9 x 20.6 cm.
• Black ink on tan paper; bordered on top and bottom by strips of Persian text in white on illuminated background, pasted onto original picture; framed in olive green paper decorated in gold with animals and plants; entire piece mounted onto pasted board.
• Composition signed "kamtarīn Bihzād 928" [1521 or 2]; this is not the famous artist Bihzād, but a later attribution as his style was widely imitated.
• Text: بسم الله الرحمن الرحىم حمداً کثىراً طيباً مبارکاً کافىةً و برغبت تامل در ان نمودن الصلوات افضلها و من التحىات اکملها

Language note

Persian.

Provenance

Acquired by Robert Garrett from Ali-Kuli Khan, 1925.

Source acquisition

Gift; Robert Garrett (Princeton Class of 1897), 1942.

References

Moghadam, M. E. et al. Garrett collection, no. 202

OCLC

773366200

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