Youth Dressed as a Dervish, folio from an album

Aqa Riza (Riza ‘Abbasi)

c.1630

Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Harvard Art Museums

A young person in a blue robe and a red hat stands holding a small object in their left hand and a long staff in their right. They are depicted against a background of stylized plants and foliage. A youthful dervish, his clothing rendered in uniformly dark hues of cool green, purple, and brown that contrast with the warm pink of his face and hands, is posed against a ground of ivory-colored paper, unpainted save for a common repertoire of golden landscape elements. He wears a plumed wool cap, carries a staff over his shoulder, and offers a sprig of yellow, red, and gray leaves to a companion beyond the picture frame. An inscription that reads, raqm/raqam-i kamina Riza-yi Abbasi (work of the humble Riza Abbasi)—the customary wording of the artist’s signed works—appears at the lower left. Although raqm or raqam ordinarily means