Court Lady Pouring Wine (recto); Calligraphy of Lyrical Quatrains (verso) (c. 1760; borders mid-1700s): Art, History and Details

Court Lady Pouring Wine (recto); Calligraphy of Lyrical Quatrains (verso) (c. 1760; borders mid-1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The artist has depicted a glass or crystal duck-headed decanter adorned with a gilded grapevine motif, signaling the contents. The red wine flows from the duck’s mouth into a tiny cup. Such bird-shaped wine vessels are vestiges of the blood sacrifices once part of ancient Persian court rituals. On the verso, floral sprigs illuminate the central calligraphic work, and paired verses have been written in smaller script all around the border. On this page, all the verses are about the beauty of—and longing for—the beloved.

Object facts

• Title: Court Lady Pouring Wine (recto); Calligraphy of Lyrical Quatrains (verso)
• Date: c. 1760; borders mid-1700s
• Culture: Mughal India, probably Lucknow
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 30.6 x 25 cm (12 1/16 x 9 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.348

A detail from the museum

The bird-headed decanter evokes blood rites of kingship in pre-Islamic Iran.

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's, London. Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. December 10, 1962.
• Krishnan, Gauri Parimoo. Beauty in Asia: 200 BCE to Today. Singapore: Asian Civilisations Museum, 2007.
• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.