Wine bearers in landscape, from a robe

Iran is renowned for representations of large human figures in luxury silks during the Safavid period. Symbolic images of beauty and love characterize this signature silk in which a wine bearer appears in a landscape with cypresses and blossoming prunus trees, a pond, and a rocky hill along with animals of royal hunts. Cypresses and long-neck bottles were metaphors for elegance and male beauty while cypresses entwined by blossoming trees, paired pheasants, youth, and wine impart themes of love. The asymmetrical composition contrasts vitality and order, which contributes to concealing the repeated design inherent in patterned silks.