Shah and the British Ambassador

* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

Shah and the British Ambassador

Series: Underground
Edition: 1/5
2014
Photographs
Inkjet print
59 1/16 × 39 3/8 × 1 1/4 in. (150.02 × 100.01 × 3.18 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by Kitzia and Richard Goodman through the 2016 Collectors Committee (M.2016.138.5)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

One of the many challenges of Nasir al-Din’s reign was the escalating interference of England and Russia as each sought control over traditional Persian territories....
One of the many challenges of Nasir al-Din’s reign was the escalating interference of England and Russia as each sought control over traditional Persian territories. A pair of prints (see M.2016.138.6) ironically emphasizes the shah’s impotence against such foreign domination, personified by the ambassadors. Here, the British ambassador uses a leash and whip to control the shah, feminized and sexualized by black lace stockings. The sexualized depiction of the shah references a letter the artist found supposedly written by Nasir al-Din Shah in a moment of desperation in his dealings with England in which he notes he did not want to succumb to their greater power by behaving like: “a loose woman who gives in as soon as she is asked to remove her underwear.”
More...

Bibliography

  • Komaroff, Linda. In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018.