A RECLINING WOMAN AND HER LAPDOG
Persian miniature, Isfahan school, ca. 1640
British Museum, London
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"Be attentive, beloved, and, in so doing,
relieve the pain of this loving heart,
for your kingdom of grace will not last forever;
like so many others, you will be denuded."
Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat (quatrain 434)
A woman lies back against cushions, lazily watching her dog drink from her wine-bowl. Her relaxed pose and the loosened state of her clothes and hair imply permissiveness, as does the freedom allowed to the lapdog. She is almost certainly a prostitute, and the lavish ceramics, cushions and clothing suggest that she is an expensive one. Many European travellers to Iran in the seventeenth century remarked on the high-class courtesans of Isfahan, and their luxurious lifestyles (From the British Museum).
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