Bilqis Queen of Sheba - Sadiqi Beg - Isfahan - c 1590s

A young woman reclines in a Persian garden, a small rolled letter in her hands, watching a crested bird on a stump. This is Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, attributed to Sadiqi Beg — librarian to Shah Abbas — and painted in Safavid Isfahan around the 1590s. Unusually, it was made not to illustrate a book but to be admired alone, mounted in an album of masterpieces. ### The beauty code of Shah Abbas's court Her face follows the idealised Safavid formula, every element with its own Persian name: - chashm-e ahu — deer-like almond eyes ringed with kohl (sormeh) - crescent brows darkened with vasmeh, likened to a hunter's bow - lab-e la'l — a tiny rosebud mouth over porcelain skin finished with sefidab - morvarid — a pearl chin-strap from Persia's Gulf fisheries, fastening her tall pointed cap - zolf — oiled ringlets said to ensnare the hearts of lovers The soft rouge on her cheeks (ghazeh) is convention, not emotion — she was always going to be painted glowing. ### The hoopoe, the robe, and the garden The little crested bird is the hinge of the story. In the Qur'an, Solomon understands the speech of birds and sends the hoopoe as messenger to the Queen of Sheba; here it has come for her reply. Her khal'at is zarbaft, gold-woven silk from the royal workshops of Yazd, Kashan and Isfahan — and inside its islimi scrollwork, faces appear: a tranquil human profile, a snarling feline mask, a small bird in the vines. This is the waq-waq tradition, a courtly game of hidden living things woven through foliage. Beside her rest a golden wine-cup, an iris (susan, the poets' emblem of eloquence) and a hollyhock (khatmi, sign of abundance). She sits in the shade of a chenar, the Oriental plane tree beloved of Persian gardens — a khalvat, or private retreat, painted for a shah. For more close-readings in this tradition, see The Lovers by Reza Abbasi or Seduction of Yusuf by Bihzad. The painting survives today in the British Museum.