Nashmi the Archer

In this remarkable portrait are the traits of independence and nonconformity for which Riza-yi ʿAbbasi was criticized by his contemporaries. This painting of a pot-bellied, hollow-cheeked fellow with smoldering water pipe and bow may represent a figure whom Riza met at the fringes of respectable society, or it may have been intended as a parody of the once-proud corps of archers, whose profession slid into obsolescence with the advent of firearms and the shah’s military reforms. Also captured in the caricature is a member of a Christian religious order, whose tonsured head appears on the base of the pipe. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Isfahan played host to a fractious mix of Franciscans, Augustinians, Jesuits, Carmelites, and Capuchins, many of whom served as envoys of European rulers seeking military alliance with Iran against the Ottoman Empire. Ultimately, their diplomacy and schemes amounted to little more than the smoke rising from Nashmi’s pipe. The painting is signed by Riza-yi ʿAbbasi and dated 4 Rabiʿ II 1039 (Tuesday 21 November 1629), and inscribed by the painter as Image (surat) of Nashmi the Archer.