Girl in a Fur Hat

This elegant masterpiece is the earliest dated work by the renowned Isfahan artist Riza-i Abbasi. Wearing a tall headdress, her elegant, elongated figure dropped gracefully on one knee, this girl has a calm and thoughtful expression in her lovely narrow slanting eyes, emphasized by the dark brows. The precise contours of the figure are confidently and freely drawn, while the elegant combination of soft golden tones and the fragment of sky-blue fur in the hat reinforce the poetic nature of the image. In the upper left part of the sheet is the artist's signature in heavy black Indian ink: Drawn by the humble Riza-i Abbasi. The miniature is set in a bright ornamental frame and stuck onto pink cardboard decorated with gold flower patterns. Such sheets were created in Iran from the 16th century for muraqqa', albums of miniatures and drawings intended for private contemplation.