Sleeping Youth (verso), Illustration from a Single Page Manuscript (early 1600s): Art, History and Details

Sleeping Youth (verso), Illustration from a Single Page Manuscript (early 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Riza-yi Abbasi (Iranian).

The work and its context

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

The Iranian painter Riza ‘Abbasi spearheaded the new style with single figures, receding space, and partial modeling, influenced by European travelers to Iran and painters who accompanied foreign embassies, one being John the Dutchman who in 1626 painted narrative scenes on palace walls of Shah ‘Abbas I. This sleeping youth displays a prestigious sash and has removed his equally opulent turban.

Object facts

• Title: Sleeping Youth (verso), Illustration from a Single Page Manuscript
• Date: early 1600s
• Creator attribution: Riza-yi Abbasi (Iranian)
• Culture: Iran, Isfahan, Safavid period (1501-1722)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: opaque watercolor and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 21 x 12.4 cm (8 1/4 x 4 7/8 in.); Overall: 31.6 x 20.4 cm (12 7/16 x 8 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1944.494.b

A detail from the museum

Paintings like this frequently illustrated collections of verses about love and beauty; these themes often appear to serve as allegories of things divine.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Islamic Art: Selected Examples from the Loan Exhibition of Islamic Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.
• The Arts of Persia and Mohammedan India: Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Institute, 1949.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.