My Husband Applies Henna
Catalog details
- Artist
- Master Jalil Ziapour
- Date
- 1963 (1342 SH)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 170 × 120 cm
- Style
- Ziapour’s national style
- Collection
- Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
- Also known as
- My Husband Paints Me with Henna
- Inscription
- Lines of the folk song “Aqam Hana Mibandeh” (“My Husband Applies Henna”), in dialect, written in two crossing rectangles, one horizontal and one vertical (Persian text on the Persian page).
My Husband Applies Henna, oil on canvas, 1963, in Jalil Ziapour’s national style.
About this work
This work is drawn from the folk song “Aqam Hana Mibandeh” (“My Husband Applies Henna”), which is sung at Hanabandan (henna night) ceremonies in the North Khorasan region and is accompanied by a local dance. The ancient Iranian ritual known as Hanabandan consisted of colouring the backs of the hands, the palms and the fingers of young brides with henna as a sign of happiness and good fortune.
In this painting, the figure of a girl in local costume is seen, seated in the centre with dark brown hands and feet coloured with henna, playing a frame drum with her hands.
Above the figure of the girl, part of the text of this folk song about this ritual is written horizontally and vertically. In translation:
My husband applies henna,
on my hands and feet he applies it.
If there is no gold,
he applies gold wash.
