Detached album folio: top of the page: calligraphic panel in Arabic black nasta'liq script, signed by Sultan Ali Mashhadi; bottom right: Youth standing, ascribed to Ustad Muhammad Qasim; bottom left: Lady with a cup, ascribed to Sadiqi, bottom page: stamp.
Border: The painting is set in green, gold and black rulings in an inner frame of calligraphy panels, in Persian black nasta'liq script, with golden flowers and a gold outer frame, mounted on a board with gold floral motifs on a blue ground.
Inscriptions:
Triangular panel, top right, "written by Sultan Ali Mashhadi."
Bottom right, "master Muhammad Qasim."
Bottom left, "Sadiqi."
Provenance:
From at least 1910
Léonce Rosenberg (1879-1947), Paris, from at least 1910 [1]
To 1942
Henri Vever (1854-1942), Paris and Noyers, France, to 1942 [2]
From 1942 to 1986
Family member, Paris and Boulogne, France, by inheritance from Henri Vever, Paris and Noyers, France [3]
From 1986
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, purchased from a family member, Paris and Boulogne, France [4]
Notes:
[1] The object is documented as having appeared in the collection of Léonce Rosenberg by at least July 21, 1910. See Susan Nemazee, "Appendix 7: Chart of Recent Provenance" in An Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of the Vever Collection, Glenn D. Lowry et al (Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1988), p. 409.
[2] See Glenn D. Lowry et al., An Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of the Vever Collection (Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1988), p. 306, no. 356.
[3] See the Agreement for the Purchase and Sale of the Henri Vever Collection of January 9, 1986, Collections Management Office.
[4] See note 3.
Collection:
Arthur M. Sackler Collection
Exhibition History:
Nasta’liq: The Genius of Persian Calligraphy (September 13, 2014 to May 3, 2015)
A Jeweler's Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book from the Vever Collection (November 20, 1988 to April 30, 1989)
