English: SAFAVID IRAN, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Pen and ink heightened with gold on paper, done after a European original, with Abraham about to sacrifice Issac, the ram waiting his turn in the foreground, an angel holds on to the blade of the sword above, laid down between gold geometric margins between gold and polychrome bands on gold-speckled blue paper 3 3/8 x 2½in. (8.5 x 6.5cm.)

This composition of this work is based on an engraving by Egbert van Panderen after a painting by P. de Jode. The rendition of this familiar biblical subject continued to thrive in Iran as a subject for painting throughout the 18th and 19th centuries; six paintings after this original are known to exist; the publication of this example brings the total to seven. Easily the best known of these is the brilliantly coloured magnificent example in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa' by Muhammad Zaman dated AH 1096/1684-85 AD (The St. Petersburg Muraqqa', Milan, 1996, plate 52, folio 89 recto, p.67). As a pen and ink and thus black and white drawing, the artist of the present example is likely to be working from the original engraving.