Page 68 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

This painting is by Reza ‘Abbasi (ca. 1565- of birds developed during the second half of
1635) who is considered perhaps the most
innovative and influential later Safavid artist.
A contemporary of Shah ‘Abbas, he joined the
Shah’s atelier soon after his accession in 1587,
and continued to work into the 1630s. Our
painting clearly illustrates Reza’s keen sense
of colouristic nuance, his amazing naturalistic
precision, and his ability to express tactile
qualities, such as the feathers of our bulbul, all
of which come together to form the controlled
exuberance for which he is known.
Paintings of birds are less common in
the corpus of works by Reza’ Abbasi than
handsome youths or lovers. In her seminal work
on the artist, Sheila Canby writes that Reza had
a penchant for including birds ‘in conversation’
with one another in his paintings, and writes
that it is therefore not surprising that he also
then took single birds as subjects (Sheila
Canby, The Rebellious Reformer. The Drawings
and Paintings of Riza-yi ‘Abbasi of Isfahan,
London, 1996, p.132). She mentions only three
others that are known – one a copy of a work
by Bihzad of a Jay Perched in Flowers (cat.97
in her book, present whereabouts unknown);
another a bulbul or nightingale mounted with
Lovers in a Landscape which she dates to the
1620s (cat.53, now in the Seattle Art Museum,
inv.no.IS36.13); and a Study of a Bird which is
dated Sha’ban AH 1043/February 1634 AD,
a year before his death (cat.98, now in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc.no.1985.2,
acquired at Christie’s, London, 28 November
1983, lot 125). Like those, our painting depicts
the bulbul perched on a craggy rock, a large
leafy tree swaying in the background. The level
of detail exhibited in our painting is closer to
that of the Seattle bird. Canby argues that
the Met bird reveals brushwork that is slightly
less crisp, and forms that are slightly less well
defined – perhaps due to his advanced age at
the time of painting it (Canby, op.cit., p.132).
Amongst Reza ‘Abbasi’s most brilliant followers
were Mu’in Musavvir and Shaykh ‘Abbasi,
both of whom also executed bird studies
similar in a style to ours, as a vogue for highly
finished and meticulously accurate studies
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the 17 century. Two very similar paintings
th
of a bulbul perched on a rock are signed by
Mu’in Musavvir – one is in the Keir Collection
(illustrated here, and bought at Christie’s,
London, 4 July 1985, lot 194), the other is in Yale
University Art Gallery (2001.138.9). So close are
Mu’in’s paintings to this painting by his teacher
that he must have been aware of it and used
it as his model. Although Reza was a prolific
artist with numerous students, there are very
few works by him where we can clearly identify
a direct copy done by one of his students. One
such example is the Nashmi Kaman-dar ‘the
Archer’, where the original by Reza is in the
Harvard Art Museum (1960.197), and a copy
by Mu’in in the Smithsonian (S1998.15). The
rediscovery of this painting and its similarity to
the Keir and Yale Mu’in birds, provides another
valuable demonstration of the master-student
relationship.
Our painting was sold in one of three sales of
the Sevadjian collection which took place at
Hotel Drouot in Paris on 22/23 November 1960,
18/20 March 1961 (where ours appeared as
lot 46) and 31 October 1961. Between the first
two sales there were 12 similar bird paintings
sold. Two were signed Reza ‘Abbasi (one is
ours, the other was painted on cotton and is
listed in Sheila Canby’s work on the artist as
having an ‘uncertain attribution’), two paintings
by Mu’in Musavvir, two by Shafi’ ‘Abbasi, and
one by ‘Ali Naqi bin Shaykh ‘Abbasi. The others
were unsigned. Many shared similar borders
with ours, and the late Mlle Densmore, who
was responsible for the Sevadjian catalogues
stated that the paintings originally formed
part of a royal album, of birds (B.W.Robinson,
R.W.Skelton, Friedrich Spuhler, Géza Fehérvári,
Oliver Watson and R.H.Pinder-Wilson, Islamic
Art in the Keir Collection, London, 1988, p.21).
A Safavid portrait of Reza by, Mu’in Musavvir,
sold Christie’s, New York as part of The
Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, 10
May 2018, lot 1001. A painting by Reza of a
Seated Youth sold more recently Christie’s,
London, 25 October 2018, lot 56.
A White-Eared Bulbul (Pycnonotus Leucogenys), 1671
The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art (K.1.2014,775)
© The Kier Collection, by kind permission of Ranros Universal, SA.
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