Velvet panel with four youths smelling flowers, 1625-1650. A new style depicting single figures with limited modeling and European artistic influence was spearheaded by the Iranian painter Riza ?Abbasi and adopted by textile designers in sumptuous brocaded velvets. Even with faded colours, this grand length retains ten colours of velvet pile, a feat that Iranian velvet weavers achieved by skillfully replacing coloured pile warp during weaving, and thereby creating the most colourful velvets in the world. Elegant youths dominate the simplified outdoor setting here with diminutive cypresses and silver ponds on a ground originally covered with gold thread. Fashionably dressed young men wear wide-brimmed hats, silver robes, stole-like scarves, and knotted sashes that are symbols of status and rank.