Portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar (Reigned 1848-96), Signed by his court artist Abu'l Hassan Ghaffari, Qajar, Persia, Dated A.H. 1274/A.D.1857

This fine painting executed by the celebrated court painter Abu'l Hassan Ghaffari at the peak of Nasiri period painting (1850s-1870s), captures the Shah, Nasir al-Din, in the prime of his life.

The power of the image during the Qajar period should not be underestimated.  Fath 'Ali Shah (r.1797-1834), the second ruler of the Qajar empire understood better than any monarch before him what an effective tool the portrait could be.  From this era onwards the likeness of the ruler was utilised ruthlessly as a tool of propaganda both nationally and internationally.  Within Persia the beliefs of a people that remained deeply mired in religion and superstition was manipulated to imbue the portrait with a cultish, almost totemic power.  The ruler's portrait replaced him during ceremonial events and in religious situations, to the extent that his image was venerated by shows of humility, such as bowing to the painting, and offerings of money.  In the international arena, politically loaded gifts of life-size portraits of the monarch were sent abroad with emissaries who had visited the Persian court, to be presented to their respective rulers conveying the superiority of the Persian ruler.

Like his grandfather Nasir al-Din Shah was an active patron of the arts.  During his reign however the influence of European artisitc conventions advances upon the more traditional Persian aesthetic as painters were trained in Western techniques at Western academies.  A local school of portraiture was nurtured through royal benefaction, and under the tutellage of his 'painter laureate' Abu'l Hassan Khan Ghaffari, who himself studied in Paris, Persian artists produced a series of outstanding small-scale portraits of the Shah.

These portraits of Nasir al-Din Shah indicate the changing artistic and social conventions of the Nasiri period, the ruler is generally depicted in less formal and more westernised surroundings.  He is seated upon a European chair, in a nonchalant pose.  The more obvious material accoutrements  of power such as the pearl studded robes, sword, orb, daggers and so forth found in the earlier portraits of Fath 'Ali Shah have been replaced by a focus on understated elegance as conveyed by Nasir al-Din Shah's erect posture, crisp white trousers, the crown like imperial egret and his long moustaches.  In addition his lineage is highlighted by the right-hand cartouche that records his royal heritage as the fourth ruler of the Qajar dynasty.

Abu'l Hassan Ghaffari (circa 1814-1866) showed such promise that as a young man in the 1820s he was apprenticed to the celebrated Mihr 'Ali, the court painter of Fath 'Ali Shah.  These prestigious beginnings were further elevated by his dispatch to Italy and France where he studied the Renaissance period, as well as lithographic printing.  His skills were feted by his appointment to painter laureate in 1850 and then to Sani' al Mulk, the Exalted Craftsman of the Kingdom, in 1861.

This lot is closely comparable to a published example by the artist, dated to A.H. 1275/A.D.1858 (see Diba and Ekhtiar, no.74, p.241). Nasir al-Din Shah is seated on a similar chair, he wears white shoes, striped trousers, a paisley overcoat and silk tunic with a large silver buckled belt, as well as the pearl studded imperial egret.  Features such as the lobed cartouches also appear in both.  The differences lie in the more Islamic iconography prevalent here, with the Persian carpet contrasting to the Renaissance-inspired cloud formation supporting the Shah's throne in the 1858 version.