Portrait of Hakim Shifaeh

The painting in a separate folio depicts a portrait of a man seated on the ground in full figure and three-quarter profile. He is clad in a simple outer garment of bright blue, with a massive and lavishly folded turban of white fabric on his head. The background is only outlined in drawn stylized clouds and several plant motifs. The left bottom corner bears the scribe’s accessories – an ink pot, scissors, a box for writing utensils (qalamdan) and a folder with sheets of paper. One of the two inscriptions identifies the portrayed man as “Hakim Shifaeh”, i.e. most probably Shara al-Din Hassan Isphahani (b. 1548–1549 or 1558–1559, d. 1628 or 1629), a poet and court physician of Persian Shah Abbas I (died 1629). The painting style is reminiscent of the work of Reza Abbasi (died 1635), which is why authorship is attributed to this artist’s workshop. It is one of four known versions of the same portrait – the other three are deposited in the British Museum (inv. No. 1920,0917,0.298.2), the collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (inv. No. Ir. M. 95) and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (inv. No. MS. Suppl. Pers. 1572, f. 3).