1605
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Zulaykha in her palace and as an old woman with Joseph, from a Panj Ganj (Five Treasures) of Abd al-Rahman Jami (Persian, 1414–1492); verso from a Panj Ganj of Abd al-Rahman Jami (Persian, 1414–1492), with two masnavis: Yusuf va Zulaykha (Joseph and Zulaykha) and Khirad-nama-i Iskandari (Alexander’s Book of Wisdom) is a 1605 unspecified by Mushfiq, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two scenes side by side: a rich woman in a palace, then the same woman—now old—holding hands with a young man in a halo. The story comes from a Persian poem about Joseph and Zulaykha. The artist hid his name and the date in a single brick at the top left. It’s tiny, like a secret. Look up more paintings from Mughal India (paintings), Indian art to see how artists told stories in small spaces.
The recto of this album leaf illustrates two episodes from the story of Joseph and Zulaykha. In the first, Zulaykha awaits Joseph in the house she has built for them. She has painted the walls with romantic scenes and dressed herself alluringly with the intention of seducing him. The artist has discreetly inserted his name and the painting’s date in a brick of the house at the upper left. The virtuous Joseph, with flaming halo and eternally youthful features, rejects the married woman’s advances, but many years later, when Zulaykha is an elderly widow, they are reunited. In the second episode…
A cheetah caught the buck, as Zulaykha hoped to catch Joseph.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Mushfiq was a sub-imperial Mughal painter who worked in the atelier of Abd-ur-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan (also called Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana), commander-in-chief of the Mughal army in the late 16th/early 17th century.
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