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Women of the Harem

Frontispiece of Volume 2 from a copy of Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahani's Kitab al-Aghani
(Book of Songs) Iraq, Mosul; 610H/1219AD

A larger image of the Frontispiece of Volume 2 from a copy of Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahani's Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs), 1219AD.
Cairo, Egyptian National Library, Ms Farsi 579

    The first of these frontispieces (Vol. ii) contains only female figures. The surface of the miniature is divided by an arabesque frame into three registers. In the centre of the middle field is a group of female figures on a bridge built of bricks. The central figure - which has sometimes been described as a princess — is seen frontally, the others in profile or in three-quarter view.⁶ Under the bridge is a water-wheel and a pond, or stream, with fish and duck. This central scene is flanked on either side by two pairs of female musicians and attendants arranged in two tiers (as if standing on balconies), an arrangement reminiscent of the frontispiece of the pseudo-Galen manuscript in Vienna.⁷ The upper register is filled by a row of five musicians seated among trees, and in the lower register, to either side of the stream, are pairs of figures. One of these is holding what appeals to be a large bath towel. The whole miniature may have represented an open-air bathing party from a harem.

Source: Fig. 4 Frontispiece, Kitāb al-Aġānī, Cairo, Dār al-Kutub Ms. Adab 579, 1216-1220. "The Lure of the Exotic The Byzantine Heritage in Islamic Book Painting" by Robert Hillenbrand in Ambassadors, Artists, Theologians