Susan Babaie-Qajar portraits in 19th-century Iran

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The paintings that turned Persian art on its
head in the 19th century
Sussan Babaie 2 JUNE 2018
Female tumbler (detail), (c. 1800–30), unknown artist Victoria and Albert Museum
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Some of the most notable examples of artistic production in the long history of
Persian arts were created in the reign of the Qajar dynasty in the 19th century.
While Persian arts are usually associated in the popular imagination with
exquisite miniature paintings and carpets, or other luxury decorative arts, the
arts of the Qajar period are characterised by large-scale works and the
incorporation of new technologies. Twenty years ago ‘Royal Persian Paintings:
the Qajar Epoch, 1785–1925’ at the Brooklyn Museum of Art introduced the
dazzling and unfamiliar works of this period to the West. A number of
exhibitions in France and the US are now renewing that interest. ‘The Rose
Empire: Masterpieces of 19th-Century Persian Art’, a large survey of painting
and decorative arts, is about to open at the Louvre-Lens (28 March–23 July).
‘The Prince and the Shah: Royal Portraits from Qajar Iran’ at the Freer | Sackler
brings together paintings, photographs and lacquer-painted objects from the
museum’s permanent collection (24 February–5 August). And at the Harvard
Art Museums last year, ‘Technologies of the Image: Art in 19th-Century Iran’
offered new visual and intellectual juxtapositions of a range of splendid works
from the era.
After the invasion of Afghan tribes in 1722 and the collapse of Safavid rule, the
ensuing decades of political chaos and social fragmentation were brought to
an end in 1785 by Aqa Muhammad Khan, chieftain of the Turkic Qajar tribe,
whose tactical genius was matched by the shockingly brutal subjugation of his
enemies. His assassination in 1797 was followed by two Qajar reigns in which a
central government was established and Tehran’s position as the new capital
became permanent. Under Fath ‘Ali Shah (r. 1797–1834), Iran’s Caucasian
territories were ceded to Russia, thus realigning Iran’s borders to the outlines
of the country we know today. The reign of Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848–96) was
strengthened by the creation of new permanent armies, and institutions of
higher learning based on modern technologies and inspired by European
models. Qajar rule is usually understood as being tethered to its main
ideological and political predecessor, the Safavid reign of 1501 to 1722, but also
as a bridge to modernity – and this duality can be seen in the paintings of the
period.

Fath ‘Ali Shah on his throne (c. 1800–06), attributed to Mihr ‘Ali. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: RMN-GP (Musée du
Louvre)/Hervé Lewandowski
The long reign of Fath ‘Ali Shah provided Iran with relative political stability
and a ruling Qajar elite (he fathered more than 100 children). In the life-size
portrait that depicts him sitting on a gilded, enamelled and bejewelled throne
chair, he arrests the viewer’s attention with his direct gaze, enormous beard,
and extravagant royal paraphernalia. The painting, which was probably
commissioned from the court artist Mihr ‘Ali in around 1800–06, was
presented to the French envoy Amédée Jaubert in July 1806 as a royal gift for
Napoleon (hence its current home at the Louvre). This is a state portrait
intended to awe, with the Shah displaying the accoutrements of his authority
not only in the elaborate throne but also with the massive Taj-i Kiyani
crowning his head, the heavily and exquisitely bejewelled armbands, the belt
with its long attachment associated with the Qajar tribal costume, and the
sword of state.
Mural at the Chehel Sutan Palace in Isfahan, from the 16th century, showing the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp receiving
the exiled Mughal emperor Humayun Photo: © EmmePi Travel/Alamy Stock Photo
Several features of Fath ‘Ali Shah’s portrait strike a familiar historical chord
while also signalling a new era in pictorial representations of authority and its
sources of legitimacy. Compare it, for instance, with a large mural painting
from the audience hall of the Chehel Sutun Palace (Palace of Forty Columns) in
Isfahan, the Safavid capital from 1590 to 1722. Here Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76)
is dressed in a crimson-red robe worn over an embroidered gold shirt. He is
also wearing a gem-encrusted belt from which his jewelled sword hangs and
his turban is elegantly wrapped around a baton-like extension of a skull cap
sporting gorgeous aigrettes. Tahmasp’s rank is made clear through his larger
size relative to the other figures, his outward glance and his hand gesture.
Although the Mughal Emperor Humayun is also luxuriously robed and
turbaned according to his station, he is smaller in stature and more
submissive, even suppliant, in his hand gestures. The Safavid Shah is the host
of a deposed ruler – Humayun took refuge at the court of Tahmasp in 1544,
while preparing to return to India to regain his throne. The Safavid murals at
the Chehel Sutun Palace were composed principally around the theme of royal
generosity and the extension of political refuge and support to deposed
Mughal and Uzbek rulers.

The emphasis on the figure and on imperial regalia, stiff, frontal poses,
commanding gestures and piercing gazes became defining characteristics of
the portraits of Fath ‘Ali Shah, and apply to much Qajar royal portraiture. For
the Qajars the Shah was the progenitor of a princely clan, and this relationship
formed the administrative and imperial structure of Qajar rule. In the Safavid
system, by contrast, the Shah’s authority derived from his role as the head of a
royal household, which included the harem, where his mother might be of
Circassian, Armenian or Georgian origin and not of Safavid royal blood, and a
large administrative class of dignitaries and administrators, consisting of
converted Circassians, Armenians and Georgians, as well as the eunuchs of the
household. While the pictorial representations of the Safavid imperial
household and the Qajar Shahs is quite different, the example of how the
Safavids had conveyed their imperial authority in visual terms was not lost on
Qajar designers, artists and planners.
Safavid Shahs were rarely portrayed on a physical throne and never wore
crowns. Both objects were anathema to a system of rule in which the Shah
stood as the representative on earth of the Shi‘i imams. The image of an
enthroned and crowned king in the pictorial programmes of the Qajars was
strengthened by the appropriation of pre-Islamic Iranian representations of
kings – the monumental rock reliefs of the Sassanian kings (224–651), were
particularly inspirational.
Fath ‘Ali Shah sitting on his throne from the Shahanshahnama of Fath ‘Ali Khan Saba (c. 1810–40), unknown artist. Musée du
Louvre, Paris Photo: © RMN-GP (Musée du Louvre)/Raphaël Chipault
Continuities from the Safavid period are detectable in such Qajar images as a
page from a manuscript of the Shahanshahnama (The Book of King of Kings).
This was a poetic celebration from around 1810 of the reign of Fath ‘Ali Shah
and a deliberate emulation of the great Iranian national epic of the Shahnama
(The Book of Kings), composed by the poet Firdausi in 1010, and regularly
copied and illustrated on commission from kings from the early 14th century
onwards. Fath ‘Ali Shah’s grandiose claim to be the king of kings, in the
tradition of the ancient Iranians, is conveyed by illustrations of him enthroned
and surrounded by his courtiers, acting not in the traditional manner of the
kings of the 11th-century epic poem, but as a contemporary all-powerful
sovereign. These smaller images, made for books that could be transported,
were designed as gifts and produced in multiples.

The Safavid mural at Chehel Sutun is also useful as a way of understanding
how Qajar artists developed a repertoire of paintings specifically designed for
interior architectural decoration. As had been the custom during Safavid rule,
most of the artists worked in the court atelier. In earlier periods this
institution was known as the kitabkhana (a library-cum-book production
centre, including painters and calligraphers); in the Qajar period, it becomes
the naqqashkhana (the house of painting), with a clear preference given to the
art of painting. There are countless life-size paintings in oil on canvas, shaped
to fit into niches in the interiors of special chambers in 19th-century palaces
and mansions. In the paintings of ‘tumblers’, for example, girls stand on their
hands or folded arms in impossible upside-down poses, with their heads
nonchalantly turned to face the viewer, hennaed feet up in the air, puffy
pantaloons and skirts and petticoats arranged in folds that completely conceal
the body. While these acrobatics are uniquely Qajar, a familial connection
with the dancing girls in the Safavid mural seems clear.
Female tumbler (c. 1800–30), unknown artist. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
It was in Isfahan that the Safavid penchant for large-scale figurative paintings,
either directly applied to prepared walls (as in the Chehel Sutun case) or
painted on canvas in oil pigments popularised a new style and form of
painting. Mansions belonging to high-ranking ministers of the court and to
wealthy Armenian merchants competed for the services of palace artists to
create paintings such as the late Safavid portrait of an unknown, possibly
European gentleman. From an iconographic point of view, a standing pose in a
life-size image such as this should be understood as a predecessor of the
standing images of Qajar kings. Clients commissioned a variety of portraits
that were not necessarily of specific individuals, but representative of the
types of men and women who were to be found in the cosmopolitan world of
Isfahan. Georgian, Armenian, Russian, Spanish and other European portrait
‘types’, as well as Persians, graced the walls of the palaces and mansions
alongside historical and literary subjects. The life-size figure types and largescale
thematic paintings in Safavid Isfahan inspired the presence throughout
Qajar interiors in Tehran and elsewhere, of images of dancers, hunting scenes,
and enthronement and court gatherings that can be found in museums and in
some cases still in situ in Iran.
Portrait of a European Gentleman (17th century), unknown artist. Museum of Islamic Art, Doha. Photo: Marc Pelletreau;

courtesy Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
In contrast with the grandeur of the portraits of Fath ‘Ali Shah, however, the
degree of informality and verisimilitude with which later Qajar Shahs are
depicted marks a decidedly modern turn in pictorial terms. The standing
portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah propels the king to the foreground of the picture
plane. The immediacy is heightened by the position of his hand resting on the
back of a chair, and the casual way in which he extends one foot sideways
while also leaning lightly on his sword. Looking at this portrait, the viewer
can detect the new possibilities created by the introduction of photography in
Iran, in the 1840s, soon after its invention in France. Jules Richard, a
Frenchman, arrived in Tehran in 1844, bringing with him the first
photographic camera and introduced daguerreotype technology. After his
accession in 1848, Nasir al-Din Shah adopted photography as a serious
pastime, taking photographs of his women, children and court eunuchs. Royal
portraiture in the later Qajar period was deeply affected by the availability and
widespread interest in photography; photographs would often serve as the
model for portraits. Yet, it would be overstating it to assume these
transformations were the result of increased European contact.
The extraordinary painting of Ladies around a Samovar (c. 1860–75) is a case in
point. The artist Isma‘il Jalayir, a well-known court artist, used photographs
of individual women to compose a gathering around what appears to be an
afternoon tea in a garden. Several of the figures are recognisable from other
paintings as well as reminiscent of late Safavid types (the musician to the far
right, for instance). Jalayir’s composition, however, is deliberately defiant of
the mimetic devices so central to photography, at least in its early uses. The
women are posed tightly together on a porch (notice the column to the right)
against a lush background of trees and bushes and engaged in the activities
one might expect of a gathering of women at court: dancing, playing music,
smoking, drinking tea, looking elegant in their finery. The painting is as
innovative in style as Persian miniature paintings of the 16th century or the
Safavid portraits of the king and his entourage. Yet the unreality of what might
otherwise be a depiction of an everyday genre scene is unsettling and utterly
modern. Nowhere do we find this kind of intermixing of styles and modes of
picture-making in the painting traditions of Iran before the late 19th century.

Ladies around a Samovar (c. 1860–75), Isma‘il Jalayir. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Qajar portraits emerged from a distinctively Iranian understanding of
portraiture in which creating a realistic depiction of the subject is less
important than capturing an approximation of the sitter’s likeness. After the
introduction of photography, the Persian way of making a portrait would
perhaps be best described through the difference between a shabih-likeness
and an aks, between a simulation of the image and an exact duplicate; a
distinction that is made also in examples of Persian painting from the Safavid
and Qajar periods. It is in this sense that Qajar portraiture assumes its place
within the traditions of Persian painting and demonstrates its capacity to
receive and refashion influences and styles to suit its own needs.
Sussan Babaie is the Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam at
the Courtauld Institute of Art.
‘The Rose Empire: Masterpieces of 19th-Century Persian Art’ is at the Louvre-
Lens until 23rd July.