2011.532: A Bearded Man Leaning on a Crutch

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2011.532

People

Attributed to Shaykh Muhammad, Persian

Title

A Bearded Man Leaning on a Crutch

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

mid 16th century

Places

Creation Place: Middle East, Iran, Tabriz

Period

Safavid period

Culture

Persian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/217676

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Black and red-brown inks, opaque watercolor and gold on off-white paper

Dimensions

10.3 x 9.5 cm (4 1/16 x 3 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Stuart Cary Welch, Jr., Warner, New Hampshire (by 1969-2008), 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

2011.532

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description

This diminutive drawing depicts a bearded man who leans on a crutch, perhaps because of age or lameness. He has tucked a book into the chest of his caftan, which he holds with both hands. From his belted sash hangs a case and tassels. The drawing is mostly in black ink except for the headgear, crutch, and the sash, which are drawn in red ink. The boots are painted with an opaque red color and gold is applied in a small area on the head gear. The red color of his boots definitely draws attention and perhaps had a special meaning in the original context. The drawing has been attributed by S. C. Welch to Shaykh Muhammad, who had also worked on two important manuscripts produced for Shah Tahmasb. The drawing is too large to have been a preparatory sketch for a miniature painting, and perhaps demonstrates the transition to single figure drawings destined for albums.

Publication History

• Martin Bernard Dickson and Stuart Cary Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1981), I: 177, fig 235
• 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.46-47, no. 4

Exhibition History

• Islamic Art: Drawings, Calligraphies and Objects, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/29/1983 - 09/25/1983
• Portraiture in Iran and India, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/09/1983 - 02/01/1984
• 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