The Court of Persia; Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar Enthroned with princes, noblemen, ministers and foreign envoys, after the original wall painting in the Negarestan Palace, near Tehran. London, printed by Robert Havell, 1834

The Court of Persia: Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar Enthroned with princes, noblemen, ministers and foreign envoys, after the original wall painting in the Negarestan Palace, near Tehran
London, printed by Robert Havell, 1834
Coloured aquatint on paper, depicting Fath'Ali Shah on a throne to centre flanked by the court, a further six figures below, with extensive description to each side, after a painting (in the possession of Thomas Alcock of Kingswood) copied from the mural, dedicated to the Royal Asiatic Society
113 cm. x 29 cm.; with frame 125 cm. 47.3 cm.

The wall paintings, completed in 1812-13, and now destroyed, on which the original painting is based depict an imaginary New Year assembly of the court. Also present are various foreign envoys from Britain, Russia, France, Sind, Arabia and the Ottoman Empire; the presence of the foreign figures represents their symbolic submission to the Shah and thereby the supremacy of Persia. A number of smaller copies on paper were produced between 1813 and Fath 'Ali Shah's death in 1834: there is one in the India Office (see B. W. Robinson, G. Guadalupi, Qajar, la pittura di corte di Persia, 1982, pp. 42-53); and another in the Smithsonian Institution (for which see Diba, below). Another was sold in these rooms; see Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 25th April 2017, lot 179. See also in general, L. Diba, Royal Persian Paintings: the Qajar Epoch 1785-1925, New York 1998, pp. 174-176.