Os amantes

Reza Abbasi made this small painting on paper around 1630, near the end of a long career as the leading artist at the Safavid court in Isfahan, in what is now Iran. A young couple leans into a single embrace, their bodies merged inside one flowing outline, the man offering a cup of wine. Scenes this openly sensual had their moment just then: the new ruler, Shah Safi, who came to the throne in 1629, presided over a more relaxed and pleasure-loving court than his stern grandfather had. What holds the sheet together is the line itself, the springing calligraphic contour Reza Abbasi was famous for, drawn in ink and touched with watercolour and gold. He signed it, as he often did, with a note about the making of the work.