Wall painting with a female figure from Nishapur

What you see

What you see

A fragment of a wall painting on stucco, 24.1 by 26 cm, on a mount; the record's title names a female figure, and its subject tag is "Women". According to the museum's description, it was discovered along with several other intriguing fragments in the drain in one of the houses of the Sabz Pushan neighbourhood. All of the discarded fragments bore images of people or demon-like figures, but in their broken state it was difficult to determine what kind of scene they originally composed. This page has no photograph: the museum's record marks its image as public domain, but it is not yet included here. Source 1.

What the record says

The record dates the fragment "9th-10th century" (normalised 800-999) and gives no period, dynasty or culture. Its geography reads "Attributed to Iran, Nishapur. Excavated in Iran, Nishapur"; no excavation year is given. The description places it among other wall paintings found at Nishapur: a hunting scene with male and female heads from the bathhouse at Qanat Tepe, dados with scrolls terminating in human hands from Tepe Madrasa, and a mounted hunter with a standing figure to his left from the Vineyard Tepe. Wall paintings are fragile and rarely survive, so the Nishapur examples are, in the description's words, extremely important to the study of the medium. Source 1.

Placement on the timeline

Because the record names no period, the fragment is placed by its date: 800-999 lies wholly within the site's Early Islamic Iran (651-1040). The Met's timeline for Iran, 500-1000 adds context but no date for the object: the Samanids, it says, ruled quite independently from Nishapur, their provincial capital in eastern Iran, and artists in Nishapur developed distinctive ceramics with slip painting beneath a transparent glaze. Whether the house in Sabz Pushan belongs to the Samanid period the record does not say. Sources 1, 2.

Where it is now

Held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, record 38.40.248, Rogers Fund, 1938. On 24 October 2026 the record page stated "On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 453". Source 1.