Amidst his growing impotence against foreign ambassadors, Conspiracy imagines the moment before a critical turn in the shah’s reign. Staged against the same palace setting as the portrait of Anis al-Dawla, Nasir al-Din Shah is now passed out on the settee, clutching a wine bottle and empty cup in his hands while the shah’s mother, Mahd Ulya and her companion in political intrigue, Mirza Agha Khan Nuri, the new prime minister, sit beside him, seemingly pleased with themselves. The prime minister holds an official-looking document with the Persian state symbol at the top, possibly the shah’s death warrant for Amir Kabir, his recently deposed prime minister, mentor, and brother-in-law. The photograph creates a stark contrast between the drunken and disheveled shah and his triumphant manipulators.
