"Summer, from a Series of the Four Seasons", Folio from the Davis Album

'Ali Quli Jabbadar

ca. 1660–70 · Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper · Islamic Art

In the foreground a standing woman turns her head slightly to her right. She holds a basket of cucumbers in her right hand while lifting her dress with her left. The woman's dress and pose and the thatched buildings in the background, which include a barnyard with chickens, a water wheel and two figures, suggest that this painting is based on a European, possibly Flemish, allegory of one of the four seasons, summer. Although the painting is not signed, the palette, composition and details such as the flowers behind the figure all are found in the work of 'Ali Quli Jabbadar, an important Safavid court artist of the second half of the seventeenth century.

Artist

'Ali Quli Jabbadar

Date

ca. 1660–70

Medium

Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

Department

Islamic Art

Credit line

Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915