A maiden, perhaps Shirin, kneeling and combing her hair by a stream in a landscape, attributed to the artist Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari al-Mustawfi Kashani

Zand or Afsharid Persia, circa 1780

Footnotes

Provenance
Persian and Islamic Art, Spink, London, 21st April-6th May 1977, no. 28, illustrated.
Private collection, London.

Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari Mustawfi Kashani was the first of a family of painters, and was the great-uncle of Sani al-Mulk, Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari. His extant work is dated between 1781 and 1794, and mostly depicts historical figures and portraits of his contemporaries, in a continuation of the style of Muhammad Zaman. A painting attributed to him (though for many years thought to be by Muhammad Zaman) depicts Shah 'Abbas II receiving a Mughal Ambassador, in the collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan: see L. S. Diba, Royal Persian Paintings: the Qajar Epoch, 1785-1925, New York 1998, pp. 147-149, no. 23. There are also portraits of Karim Khan Zand and his horse - Christie's, Islamic Art and Manuscripts, 27th April 2004, lot 81; and Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World, 6th October 2010, lot 91; and seated in an interior, Diba, op. cit, p. 151, fig. VII.

A portrait of Qazi Ahmad Ghaffari (the painter's grandfather) seated in a garden (with a similar treatment of trees), signed and dated AH 1202/AD 1787-88, was offered at Millon, Paris, 13th December 2022, lot 447.

He was in fact chiefly known as an historian (writing a chronicle of the Zand dynasty), but trained as a painter for two years before his distinguished family objected to his profession and he entered the service of Karim Khan Zand as court secretary (mustawfi) - though he did not cease to paint and draw.

The following lot in this sale (18) is almost certainly by the same artist, and from the same album, and while it was not in the Spink sale of 1977 mentioned above, it was acquired at around the same time, and the two paintings have remained together.