Young Woman as Cup Bearer, folio from an album

The drawing depicts a solitary woman offering a cup to someone outside the picture frame; other vessels for holding liquids are shown at her feet. The woman’s facial features, which include rounded cheeks, arched eyebrows, and a beauty spot, accord with contemporary standards of female comeliness. She is outfitted in elegant clothes, which emphasize her broad hips and slim torso, and a graceful headdress decorated with feathers. Wisps of curly hair frame her face and blow in the wind. The long, tapered strokes that delineate the profile of her hips and right shoulder seem to vibrate; the horizontal undulation of her hair indicates movement; and the staccato lines used to define the fluttering fabric of her skirt and the clouds in the sky above further increase the sense of animation. The drawing, which in several details reflects the style of Riza Abbasi, has been attributed to Habib Allah Savaji, an artist who was invited to work for the future ruler Shah Abbas (r. 1587–1629) in Herat and then Isfahan. Habib Allah’s oeuvre includes drawings, single-page paintings, and manuscript illustrations. Framing the drawing is a decorated border, drawn in gold on ivory paper. Layers of pink wash have been applied to the figures, which include Chinese phoenixes and qilins assimilated into Persianate art since the early 1400s, a vase with flowers, and landscape and floral elements. A series of colored ruled lines separates drawing from border.