Head of a Sufi Brotherhood, Iran, dated 1916 Oil on canvas depicting Sufi cleric Nûr 'Alî Shah kneeling on a tiger skin at the foot of a tree from which hangs a kashkul and a scabbard. He is wearing a dervish taj cap and holding a book and a tabarzin. His name is captioned in a flowery cartouche inscribed in the sky on the left, above the river landscape in the background. Lower left, the artist's signature and date 1335 H / 1916. A partially faded inscription runs across the bottom of the canvas. Mounted on a wooden stretcher. 81.5 x 63 cm A few cracks and craquelures, polychrome shifts, overpainting. Nûr 'Alî Shah, who died in 1801, was one of the guides of the Persian Sufi brotherhood of Ne'mat Allahi in the 18th century.