He was the father of the renowned miniaturist Reza Abbasi, whose early works were probably influenced by Ali Asghar.
He probably began his career under Safavid Shah Tahmasp I (r. 1524-1576), before moving to Mashhad where he became one of the leading painters in the service of the princely governor Ibrahim Mirza, alongside Sheikh Mohammad and Abd-Allah.
[2][3] According to the court historian Iskandar Beg Munshi, Ali Asghar excelled in landscape painting (streets and trees).
[3] Only two extant paintings bear an attribution to Ali Asghar's own brush: the double-page frontispiece from a 1560s manuscript of Hatefi's Timurnameh, and "Iskandar building the iron rampart" from the 1576-7 Shahnameh of Shah Ismail II.
Robinson has also credited Ali Asghar with painting the two-page frontispiece of this manuscript, "Royal Hunt," based on the aforementioned Shahnameh illustration.