Flower and a Butterfly Artist: Shafi' Abbasi (Persian, active ca. 1628–74)

dated AH 1065–1654/55 CE

Asian Art

By appointment, Duffy Study Room

Paintings of insects and flowers became popular in seventeenth-century Iran. This work, however, is not a painting but a type of etching that could be applied to paper or textiles. The inscription in the upper right corner identifies the pattern designer as the Iranian court painter Shafi ‘Abbasi, who was known for his flower paintings, demonstrating that court painters were free to work in different media.

Medium

Ink on paper

Dimensions

sheet: 13 × 8 1/16 in. (33 × 20.5 cm)

Credit Line

Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore

Accession Number

1937.4769

Geography

Iran

Culture

Iranian/Persian, Islamic

Period

Safavid dynasty (1501–1722)

Classification

Drawings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Gift of Phyllis Ackerman, 1935; Mrs. William H. Moore (1858–1955), New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography

  • Carol Bier, ed., Woven from the Soul, Spun from the Heart: Textile Arts of Safavid and Qajar Iran, 16th–19th Centuries (Washington D.C.: Textile Museum, George Washington University, 1987), 174.
  • Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, 6 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), 2135, vol. 3, pl. 1056C.

Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

botanical

Subject

butterflies

Technical metadata and APIs

IIIF

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