Likenesses were made of Nasir al-Din (r. 1848–96) as no other Iranian ruler before him, documenting his teenage years up to the time of his death....
Likenesses were made of Nasir al-Din (r. 1848–96) as no other Iranian ruler before him, documenting his teenage years up to the time of his death. The shah is shown here at perhaps just nineteen or twenty years of age, wearing jeweled portraits of the Shi‘ite Imams, probably Ali and Hasan, along with royal insignia. The archlike illuminated frame references the past, while the realistic depiction reflects more recent Western influences, including the advent of portrait photography. Two ornate medallions on either side of the shah’s head preserves the date and the royal sitter’s name.
Photography rapidly spread to Qajar Iran, a mere three years after Jacques Daguerre presented his earliest photographic images (daguerrotypes) at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1839. This new media was heartily embraced by the young Nasir al-Din Shah, who later became known as the so-called “photographer king.” Therefore, it is not surprising that Iran’s first polytechnic school, the Dar al-Funun (Abode of Sciences, est. 1851), became one of the early state centers for photography. Yet even outside of this institutional hub, as early as the 1850s travelers also reported seeing bazaar painters copying European engravings and lithographs onto an array of surfaces, including mirror cases, pen boxes, and even ceramic tile surfaces. Photography also underwent similar acts of remediation that demonstrated the multivalent possibilities for creating a two-dimensional image. Moreover, the increasing circulation of European goods, such as postcards, newspapers, photographs, and magazines, offered Qajar artists a wealth of material for experimentation over the late nineteenth century.
The artist of this portrait likely modeled the shah’s image after a circulating photograph, which he then translated into ink and color. Yet this image of Nasir al-Din Shah assimilates and literally re-frames the photo’s European pictorial conventions into a heavily Persianate mode. Though at first the portrait almost appears unfinished, in its current state the artist has captured the optical naturalism of an albumen photograph with hand-colored elements. The nebulous misty background of sepia and beige evokes the type of backdrop one might find in a commercial studio during this period. In contrast, the outer frame, topped with scalloped corner pieces, bear intricate vegetal motifs and illuminated elements that its original viewers would readily recognize from earlier Iranian manuscript traditions. These features purposefully juxtaposed photography’s monochrome aesthetic with the jewel-like palette of Persian painting to create a wholly unique form of portraiture.
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