Description:
Four elephants rampage in the center of an arena, riders on their back leading them towards a bloody and violent execution of several men, with Persian text above and below
Label Text:
Two images, recto: elephants are an Indian artistic specialty; depicted fighting, marching in the battle field, carrying the emperors and their entourage in royal processions, or just portrayed with lovingly observed details of physiognomy; this painting, with elephants unleashed for a bloody execution, is unusual,verso: from the 16th century onwards, many collectors and connoisseurs assembled samples of masterful writing and painting in albums, an example of which is this sheet; when the album is documented and has remained intact, it can be a rich source to gauge a patron's taste or to reconstruct the artistic or educational intent of the particular assemblage; in this page, the two writing samples in Persian are unrelated; the text blocks, on top and bottom, are from a "ghazal" (love poetry) by a hand different from that of the central piece; written in the elegant cursive style of "nasta'liq", the main text in prose celebrates a garden; this part is signed by a certain "shirin qalam" (sweet pen), a title given to more than one famous calligrapher.
Tags:
exterior; landscapes; animals; men; costume; deaths; crime Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1981.27.12 |
