The Disputing Physicians
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Ink |
| Current Location: | Not publicly established. |
| Location History: | The painting originated in Tabriz, Persia, during the Safavid period, approximately 1525–1535. It is believed to have belonged to a dispersed manuscript associated with Nizami's Makhzan al-Asrar or a larger edition of his Khamsa. Sotheby's notes that no other folios from this particular manuscript are currently known. Its documented modern provenance includes a private collection in the United States, where it had been held since 1964. It subsequently appeared as Lot 138 in Sotheby's Islamic and Indian Art auction on 27 October 2021. The auction catalogue does not disclose the identity of the earlier collector or the successful purchaser. Consequently, the provenance is documented from 1964 onwards, but the complete ownership history before that date remains unknown. |
The Disputing Physicians is a miniature painting from Persia which recounts a dramatic episode from the celebrated Nizami Ganjavi's Makhzan al-Asrar (Treasury of Mysteries), one of his poems in his celebrated Khamsa. The story unfolds when two doctors start debating about their respective skills and pick up a fight with each other and decide to settle the issue by challenging each other in a competition. The first physician makes a deadly potion, which he gives to his rival, according to the story. The second doctor drinks it and survives with an antidote that he made himself. Then he selects a flower and whispers a magic spell over it and gives it to the first physician. The first doctor being frightened of the supposed enchantment, collapses and dies. The painting portrays the dramatic scenes following this unusual contest. The artist sets the scene in a closed garden, outside of a building. The two doctors are in the foreground, with the defeated physician lying on the ground and his turban knocked off. The magic flower is now in his hand, but he has dropped it. A gardener is standing nearby, and other people are looking out of windows and behind the garden fence. The architectural context is particularly relevant to show the elaborate treatment of the buildings, decorative structures and surfaces for which Safavid miniature painting is characteristic. This painting is in exquisite blend of pen and ink, gouache and gold. It has a light range of colors: pink, terracotta and sandy brown. The placement of figures and architecture provides a well-balanced composition where the story can be spread out as it is presented on the small space of the manuscript page. This attribution to Mir Musavvir was suggested by the esteemed Persian art expert Stuart Cary Welch. Sotheby's observes that this miniature is similar to other known examples of Mir's work, including the miniature on folio 60v of the Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh, which has a signature. The catalogue also admits that the painting may have been the work of another Safavid court painter, Qasim ibn Ali. It is therefore preferable to attribute this, rather than certainly sign it by Mir Musavvir.
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