2011.534: A Camel

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2011.534

People

Signed by Mu’in Musavvir, Persian

Title

A Camel

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

c. 1678

Places

Creation Place: Middle East, Iran, Isfahan

Period

Safavid period

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/217014

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Brown-black ink and opaque watercolor on off-white laid paper

Dimensions

28 x 19 cm (11 x 7 1/2 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• inscription: Inscribed at upper left: “In the night of Wednesday the 28th of Shavval, 1098 [AH] these two [sic] camels designed by the late Ustad Bihzad Sultani (Mercy on him!) were drawn by Muj’in Musavvir.”

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Rabineau, Collector. Stuart Cary Welch, Jr., Warner, New Hampshire (by 1965-2008), by inheritance; to Edith I. Welch, Warner, New Hampshire (2008-2011), gift; to Harvard Art Museums 2011.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Gift of Edith I. Welch in memory of Stuart Cary Welch

Accession Year

2011

Object Number

2011.534

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

This fine drawing of a camel and a watchful man is executed in black ink and highlighted with pink and yellow watercolor. The camel is tied from its forefeet to a cut tree trunk. It also has a chain tied to its head which is hanging loose. The camel’s long hair and facial details are well executed although a calligraphic quality of line is felt in the depiction of its lower torso and feet. Possibly the guardian or owner of the camel is shown behind a hill looking over the camel. His face is more sketchily executed than that of the camel. The drawing is signed by the artist Mu’in Musavvir and dated to the 28th day of Shavval 1089 (13 December 1678).

Publication History

• Hyacinth Rabino, Les provinces caspiennes de la Perse: Le Guilan (Paris, 1917), Vol. 32
• Laurence Binyon and J. V. S. Wilkinson, Persian Miniature Painting: Including a Critical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Miniatures Exhibited at Burlington House, January-March, 1931, exh. cat., Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (London, England, 1933)
• Ernst Grube, Muslim Miniature Paintings from the XIII to XIX Century from Collections in the United States and Canada, exh. cat., Neri Pozza Editore (Venice, 1962), p 136/ fig 120
• Basil William Robinson, Persian Drawings from the 14th through the 19th Century, Shorewood Publishers Inc. (New York, NY, 1965), pp.137, plate 66
• Anthony Welch, Shah 'Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan, exh. cat., Asia Society Museum (New York, NY, 1973), page 109/figure 78
• Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art From Prehistoric Times to the Present, Soroush Press (Tehran, Iran, 1977), page 923
• Stuart Cary Welch and Kim Masteller, From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Persian, Turkish, and Indian Drawings from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection, exh. cat., Yale University Press (New Haven, 2004), pp.72-73, no. 14

Exhibition History

• Diverse are their Hues: Animals in Islamic Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/18/1984 - 02/09/1985
• Precisely to the Point, Daggers and Drawings from Persia and India: 15th-19th century, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/30/1992 - 07/26/1992
• Linear Graces ... and Disgraces: Part I, Drawings from the Courts of Persia, Turkey, and India, 15th-19th Centuries, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/15/1994 - 12/11/1994
• From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Persian, Turkish, and Indian Drawings from SCWelch, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 03/19/2005 - 06/02/2005

Verification Level