A Lover’s Plea

Folio from a manuscript of the Collected Works (Divan) of Sultan Ibrahim Mirza (fol. 32)

• Accession Number:AKM282.32
• Creator:Artist (calligrapher): `Abdullah al-Muzahhib
  Artist (painter): `Abdullah al-Muzahhib
  Compiled by: Gawhar Shad
  Poet: Sultan Ibrahim Mirza, Persian, 1540 - 1577
• Place:Iran, Qazvin
• Dimensions:23.9 cm x 16.8 cm
• Date:1582-83 CE/990 AH
• Materials and Technique:opaque watercolour, ink, gold and silver on paper

• Encounters between male lovers and their beloveds, often in garden settings, is a frequent theme in both Persian poetry and painting. The ghazal or amatory poem by Sultan Ibrahim Mirza that this illustration accompanies is a perfect example of this long-standing text-image symbiosis. In the verses immediately preceding the painting (AKM282.31, folio 31v), a lover pleads with his beloved to recognize his devotion, to return his love, and to stop causing him such heartache. In the verse in the upper panel, his beloved finally answers by laughing and chastizing the lover, “Oh Jahi, don’t say such things, you insolent cad, have some shame.”

Further Reading

It is clear from the actions of the painting’s two principal figures that the lover is the bearded man kneeling beside a stream and reaching out to grab the hem of the younger man’s robe. The lover’s elevated, possibly princely, status is indicated by the gold penknives hanging from his bejewelled belt and by the fur-lined blue outer robe that already has slid off his shoulders. The clean-shaven, youthful beloved is obviously trying to walk away, but not before turning back to inflict his final, cutting words. What the lover actually had in mind—a romantic tryst in the countryside—is evidenced by the large, gilded wine flask, the blue-and-white wine cup, and the golden bowl of fruit in the foreground. Instead, the dénouement is unhappy for both parties, with their separation witnessed by three attendants, including one who peers out from behind a cypress tree and another who fills a silver (now oxidized) ewer from a waterfall following over the mauve hillside.

In addition to exemplifying a traditional form of Persian pictorial representation, this painting and its surrounding verses confirm Sultan Ibrahim Mirza as a poet of the “realist school” that developed in Iran during the 16th century. In this poetic genre, writers employed colloquial expressions such as “you insolent cad” to capture human emotions and reactions (see AKM282.1). Sultan Ibrahim used the pen name Jahi for his verses and frequently ended his poems by invoking himself often, as here, in a lovelorn state. Although the copy of the Safavid prince’s poetry in the Aga Khan Museum was compiled five or so years following his death, it is possible that the artist ‘Abdullah al-Shirazi, who had worked for Sultan Ibrahim for several decades and who clearly participated in the Divan’s production (see AKM282.1 and AKM282.23), wanted to suggest that the lover in this ghazal and painting was in fact Sultan Ibrahim Mirza in the guise of Jahi.

— Marianna Shreve Simpson, in collaboration with Chad Kia