Lovers' picnic, painting (recto), text (verso), illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Divan (collected works) of Hafiz
Sultan Muhammad (active ca. 1505-1550) (attributed to)
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum
[Museum inv. no.: 2007.183.2]
Item location
Description
Description from museum website:This well-known painting features a pair of courtly lovers in a spring garden. Holding hands, they are seated on a carpet, shaded by a canopy bearing an exuberant arabesque. A wine bearer offers the young man a golden bowl; musicians and dancers perform in the foreground on the banks of a stream bordered by flowers. The painting appears on what was once folio 66 recto of a famous manuscript of the Divan of Hafiz and illustrates the 229th ghazal of Hafiz (P. Loloi, Hafiz Master of Persian Poetry, A critical Poetry, New York, 2004, p.149). Only the first line of the poem is shown on the illustrated page and the rest of the poem can be found on the verso side. Because the name of Sam Mirza (b. 1517), brother to the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp, appears on one of the now dispersed paintings, it is posited that the prince was the patron of the manuscript.
Iconclass
48CC753more than one musician with instrument - CC - 'concert champêtre'
48C9
dancing
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Nay [4229]Daf [2533]
Castanets [2423]
RIdIM images
Image URLs
image link 1Notes
Inscriptions and Marks from museum website:Signed: A couplet by Hafiz is written in the text blocks at the upper edge of the painting. It has been translated by Martin B. Dickson to read: "A rose without the glow of a lover bears no joy; Without wine to drink, the spring brings no joy."
inscription: In the text blocks at the upper edge of the painting (translated by Martin B. Dickson): "A rose without the glow of a lover bears no joy; / Without wine to drink, the spring brings no joy."